Circular Economies

To slow the release of carbon into the atmosphere, we can turn to renewable energy and biodegradable packaging, but to stop it, we need to return to a circular economy, with localized nodes all over the world.

Our current global and local economies depend on "natural resources" and "human resources" with the assumption that these are limitless, that the earth possesses or will continue to generate enough raw materials for the endless production and transport of new goods. In fact, many of our global industries depend not just on stable markets, but continuously growing ones, for financial stability. We have now reached the point where this will no longer allow for environmental sustainability.

In order to reach a point of truly circular economy, we need to reuse, recycle, compost, or burn (as fuel) everything we produce. And we're doing a terrible job at that.

While glass and metals can readily be recycled and similar products created, with less energy output than refining new materials, recycling plastic is much more difficult. Plastic, once produced, can't be melted down and re-used in the same form.

Water bottles (#1 plastic), for instance, can be made into fleece sweaters, but not into new plastic water bottles. There's a problem, though: every time you launder that fleece, you release microplastics into your town sewer system, and they end up in the ocean where they're killing wildlife.

Here's a table from Oxford University that summarizes how plastics are generally recycled by communities:

Go here for the full-size image

It turns out, though, that the situation isn't quite as dire, in theory: Plastics labeled  #2, #3, #4, and #5 can be turned into plastic wood. The town of Long Branch started a program last year to recycle plastic bags and wrappers (#4). They promised a park bench after 500 pounds of packaging was collected, and this January, the first bench was installed near Lake Takanassee.

Meanwhile, the town of Middletown, NJ recently opened a styrofoam recycling center, open to residents of the entire county. It only collects styrofoam used in packaging and shipping, not food-grade products, so you still need to get a reusable mug for your Dunkin Donuts coffee, and avoid take-out that's packaged in styrofoam.

There's a breakdown, however, been theory and practice. Between 1950 and 2015, the amount of plastic products produced annually rose almost 200-fold, from 2 million metric tons per year to 381 million metric tons, and only 9 percent of that was recycled.

We need to do better, and when it comes to plastics we need to address this in several different ways.

Governments need to enact carbon taxes to encourage corporate and individual consumers to use less carbon, by making it more expensive.

Producers of plastic products need to do a better job of making containers out of more easily recyclable products when possible, researching and developing biodegradable containers, and avoiding excess packaging.

Consumers need to send a message through individual purchases and buying habits that we don't want plastic. We need to:

• stop buying bottled water and other products packaged in single-use plastics
• refuse excess packaging, for instance when we buy loose produce
• advocate with local and state governments to enact plastic bag bans, and meanwhile make the choice to use reusable bags for our shopping
• boycott Dunkin Donuts and other corporations that still use styrofoam instead of paper hot drink cups, and tell them why

... and more. Those are starting points, not end points. We need to move to an economy where everything we produce can be repurposed in some way. It's going to take imagination and persistence. If we don't do it voluntarily, the effects of climate crisis will force the issue.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Green Your Holiday

'Tis the season... of frantic shopping, and of appeals from "green" companies to shop with them rather than the other companies.

Maybe you want to put the brakes on all that consumption. I'm not suggesting you just say "no" to all gift-giving, but there are ways to make it more productive.

1. Give food that you know the recipient will enjoy that's maybe a little fancier and more environmentally friendly than what they'd have consumed anyway. Organic chocolates, fair-trade coffee or tea, a gift certificate to a farmer's market, a month's pick-up from community supported agriculture, a gift certificate at the neighborhood health food store.

In New York, some greenmarkets sell "wooden nickels." You pay with a credit card (there's a small fee that goes to their overhead) and you can buy wooden tokens worth $5 each to use later or give as gifts. Other cities have similar programs.

2. Give time. Commit to helping a friend or family member with cleaning, maintenance, a special home project, or a home-cooked meal.

3. Give donations in people's names, to charities they (and you!) support. Or commit an amount, and have a conversation about where they'd like it sent.

4. If you want to give material gifts, make them yourself or think hard about where you buy them. As with other purchases throughout the year, try to limit shipping, packaging, and other kinds of waste.

5. Recycle wrapping paper: easiest to do if you use bags and tissue paper with no tape. Or buy or make reusable cloth wrapping bags, or use the comics pages from the newspaper, or re-use cardboard boxes and decorate them.

Six Pack Rings

I sent an email message to Margaret Chin and Brad Lander today. They are the sponsors of the bill passed in May and scheduled to go into effect in October that requires grocery stores in New York City to charge customers five cents per plastic bag used.

I'm hoping they'll consider taking on the issue of those vile pieces of plastic that connect cans of beer and soda.

Readers, do you have any suggestions about how to deal with these? Can soda cans be packaged in cardboard like beer bottles? Do you know an inventor who can come up with a better way?

Or is the best solution to quit drinking soda, and switch to water?

=======================

Thank you for sponsoring legislation to charge a fee for plastic bags in NYC,  and getting it passed.

I'm writing to you today to ask if you'd consider taking on six pack rings, those plastic yokes that hold soda and beer cans together and then go into the landfill.

Many people cut them into little pieces before putting them in the garbage to avoid the problem of birds choking to death in them.

But the little pieces end up in the ocean, where fish and turtles and other marine animals mistake them for food and eat them. They also contribute to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and other marine trash vortexes.

Thank you for considering this.

========================

Update: I got a reply from Vincent Fang, Council Member Chin's director of budget and legislation, saying he's going to look into it.

Update 2: I got a reply from someone in Brad Lander's office saying she's interested in the issue. And then I saw an article about a small brewery that has developed edible six-pack rings. If New York lawmakers can find a way to encourage soda and beer companies who do business in the city to adopt these rings, it could have much wider impact eventually.

How Not to Turn On the Air Conditioner

In the past ten days in my neighborhood, we've gone from a night-time low of 44 degrees, when I got my winter coat back out to walk the dog for the last time at night, to yesterdays high of 89. I work at home in the summers, and I'm sitting very comfortably at my desk with no air conditioning.

Comfortably, I said. How is this possible?

It takes a little bit more time and organization than flipping a switch so a beast in the wall can roar into operation. But not much. And it's a lot quieter.

It's also only feasible as long as nights remain cool: it's been going down into the 60's every night, and will continue to do so for most of the summer. There's always that one week in August when it doesn't go below 80 at night, and that's a different story. But for now...

Keeping my apartment comfortable during the day starts with making sure to let it cool down at night.  As soon as temperatures drop in the evening, I open all the windows to let the cool air in. The next step is to keep the place as cool as possible during the day, I cover windows when the sun is shining directly on them to keep the sun from warming the air inside. The light-blocking shade in the bedroom is most effective, but even the sheer curtain in the kitchen makes a difference.

As soon as temperatures warm up, I switch to iced coffee. I also drink cool water throughout the day to make sure I stay hydrated. Running a fan on a low setting to keep the air moving also helps. I also dress for the weather. In the winter, I keep warm with wool socks, long underwear, turtlenecks and sweaters. In the summer, those give way to tank tops and sandals.

I limit cooking during the day. I made coffee this morning, but sometimes I'll do that that the night before and then refrigerate it to drink iced. For lunch, I had a sandwich and a salad. Bonus: eating cold food cools my body. I save the bigger cooking for the evening when the air is already starting to cool again.

And last but not least, when I go outdoors, I walk on the shady side of the street when possible.

The Magazine That Made My Brain Explode

I flew on a plane the other day. I know, I know; I should have taken a train or other ground transport. It was a short-haul flight -- an hour and a half over the mountains from Luton to Basel, with a train journey on one end and a bus on the other, and took nine hours from end to end. We could have taken the train in thirteen hours, but something about the ways train and plane travel are subsidized (or not) meant that the cost would have been several times higher. Multiply that by three travellers, and it's tough to take the environmental option.

At any rate, in the airport, waiting for the delayed flight, I found a fashion magazine lying around, and leafed through it with a curiosity drifting between anthropological and outraged. An actress was photographed in a dress that took 27 people 900-plus hours to make.

I haven't been able to find out where the 80,000 sequins were sewn on the dress, and what the seamstresses made per hour. Or how much a dress like that costs. Or how much Karl Lagerfeld, who designed the dress, makes, though The Google throws back numbers between $108 million and $58 billion.

You could do a heck of a lot of good with the money that flows into high fashion. What if you shaved off the top and bottom ends? What would it take to get rid of the fast fashion that underpaid Bangladeshi seamstresses churn out in death-trap factories, and simultaneously to get Oscar winners to show up in dresses costing, say, a maximum of $500? Who really needs shoes that cost $500? Or $10,000?

The other thing that made me nuts about the fashion magazines: it appears that white is the color of the season. What's wrong with white? It looks nice and crisp, it's cool on a hot summer day.

But you know what I've noticed? My black t-shirts last practically forever. Other dark colors, same story. It takes years and years of regular wear before they get stained or faded or holy. But white clothes? one fumbled glass of wine or coffee, and it's toast. Maybe you're better than I am at stain removal, or maybe you're not as clumsy as I am.

But I've just about stopped buying whites, because they just don't last. Even light colors do better.

There was nothing, NOTHING, in any of these magazines to suggest that maybe, MAYBE, the products they were implicitly -- and very explicitly -- hawking are terrible for the environment and terrible for the people who produce them.

While I'm on the subject of fashion? Making one pair of jeans, from growing the cotton to stone-washing the finished product so it looks ten years old, takes something like 10,000 liters of water. It also dumps massive amounts of toxic dyes into the environment and causing high levels of cancer and other illnesses in the communities where factories are located. Growing the cotton in the first place takes a huge amount of water as well as massive amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

So what do you do, besides swallow the guilt and keep moving? Buy jeans that don't look ancient, and wear them until they do. Or buy organic cotton with natural dyes. Or products made out of hemp or bamboo, which take far less water to grow. Most importantly, save up to buy the most durable clothing you can afford, and then keep it around until it falls apart.

Fighting for Minimalism

I've lived in apartments in New York City for the past 25 years, and that means keeping possessions to a relative minimum unless I want to pay for storage for stuff that I then won't be able to use ... because, well, it's across town in storage.

Today, I ran across the Haters Guide to the Williams Sonoma Catalogue, which includes this gem:

The Williams-Sonoma catalog will not rest until you need a separate pot for every single goddamn thing you make.

For a while, I owned a crock pot that I'd found in my building's recycling area, with a note promising, "it works!" Since I'm either home all day or out for fifteen hours, I never left the thing unattended, and eventually I came to the conclusion that I could cook more efficiently in -- gasp -- a normal pot on the stove.

By that time I'd moved, twice, paying movers to schlep that crock pot down five flights, up four, back down the same four, and up three. In the last move, I finally after nearly 25 years in New York City moved to an elevator building, but still.

In the end, the crock pot ended up at the Salvation Army. Maybe now some other poor soul is using it based on the promise of better meals than you can make with a normal pot on a normal stove.

But the thing about Black Friday and Cyber Monday and our consumer-driven society in general is that, with the exception of kids moving out on their own, people pretty much already own all the pots they need. And so Williams Sonoma, and for that matter Walmart, need to persuade you that you need MORE pots in your kitchen.

If they can find a way to sell you DISPOSABLE kitchenware, for instance single-use roasting pans or pie pans, then they've hit the jackpot.

It takes WORK to avoid advertising. I regularly make phone calls to get people to stop sending catalogues, but one on-line purchase can mean another whole pile of them. I've installed ad-blocker on my PC, but I still see advertising on my iPad. And internet advertising is a special horror:it takes extra discipline not to click through to the next web site, and the next.

Everyone wants me, or rather my limited amount of disposable income. Another pot, a better cleaning product, another sweater, a new pair of socks, a better health plan. I'm constantly fighting the capitalist barrage of advertising trying to persuade me that I need another item.

And budget considerations aside, it's an environmental issue. How do you fight the good fight?

Green Christmas

It seems early, but then I want to get this post up before Black Friday. Christmas has become, for many people, a holiday of massively commercial proportions. Hannukah isn't far behind. With the commercialism comes a massive environmental impact. So here are some ideas about how to minimize the impact.

Presents

Consider making gifts, if you can, or buying from a craft market featuring the creations of local artisans, rather than buying on Amazon (with all that shipping and packaging) or Walmart (of the dismal labor record). Think about gifts that the recipient can use and enjoy -- food? -- rather than things that will need to be stored indefinitely.

Food

Food waste is a major contributor to over-consumption, with estimates for how much of our food we throw away ranging from 30 to 50 percent. As you plan your holiday meal, or meals, think about food waste. We all cook extra to make sure everyone will have enough to eat. Can you make plans to freeze leftovers for future use? Make the turkey bones into soup, maybe even with leftover vegetable side dishes?

Packaging

There's the packaging that stuff comes in. Would you consider choosing purchases based on the amount of packaging? Amazon comes to mind again. But making stuff by hand or buying locally also has good potential to reduce packaging. Then there's wrapping paper. We keep a box of used wrapping paper; other families use cloth wrapping bags and reuse them every year; others use the comics section of the newspaper for wrapping.

Travel

With family in Europe and across the US, I travel a lot, and I often end up flying instead of using ground transport, and I often travel by car rather than on trains or buses. So I feel a bit hypocritical including this category. But the point is for everyone to think about areas where they can cut back, and different things will work for all of us. Think about carpooling or, if possible, taking a train or a bus to your destination. Shopping locally can also limit driving time.

Chocolate

The Hershey corporation has made a commitment to ending the use of child labor in its source chains... by 2020. You can end child labor in your own chocolate today by purchasing fair trade chocolate.

Happy holidays, y'all.

40 Bags, 40 Days, Recalibration

Progress has been slow in the 40 Bags in 40 Days project, because life has been busy. Even so, it's already shifted my thinking.

I counted March 18 and 19 as Day 11, with some culling in the linen closet. March 23 saw more progress. Day 12: I finally looked at the huge bag of notebooks and papers The Offspring brought home at the end of fourth grade; almost all of it went into paper recycling. Day 13: outgrown clothes. Day 14: toys. Day 15: An IKEA lamp with a too-dim bulb, sitting in a corner and never used. Day 16: a duct-taped sled, scavenged from the trash, back to the trash. Day 17: I finally framed my PhD and MPhil diplomas by putting them in the same frame with my MA. It's only been sixteen years. How does that count? There was a lot of packaging.

Meanwhile, what with one thing and another, I've lost some weight, and this morning I thought, "All my clothes are too big." I immediately imagined going shopping, but then the 40-bag purge project stalled the idea. Why lose all the momentum, all the space gained in closets and cabinets? Some of my clothes still fit fine, because sizes vary regardless of the number on the label, and different materials and styles are more or less forgiving. Plus, belts.

My hope with projects like this is to initiate a lasting change in habits. Last year's failed Ten of Tens was an effort to find some areas where I could move permanently in the direction of greater sustainability; if the 40-bag purge leaves me with an on-going aversion to shopping, so that I quit over-buying because stuff is on sale, that would be a great outcome.

Stay tuned.

In My Pack...

... just in case you were wondering.

Shirts with buttons: two short-sleeved, one sleeveless, one very light-weight with long sleeves.  Stretch shirts: one long-sleeved, tank top purchased during the trip; fleece sweater.  One short-sleeved shirt would have sufficed.

Zip-off pants, skort, knee-length shorts, and long underwear.  Could have left skort or shorts behind; a longer skirt (for going into churches and the Vatican) would have been useful.

One necklace, one pair of earrings.

Rain pants, rain jacket, Polartec hat, neck gaiter, gloves, scarf.  Jacket used once during a quick rain shower at the top of a ridge, scarf used in the evenings at high altitude, the rest unused, because the weather was so warm and dry.  I'd carry them again, except for the scarf -- could have used the neck gaiter.

Sunscreen and sun hat, used extensively.  I'm going to be on the lookout for a hat with a wider brim.

Four pairs of socks, four pairs of underwear, two bras, two-piece swimsuit; hiking boots and sandals.  Three pairs of socks would have been enough; the swimsuit wasn't used enough to justify carrying.

First aid kit and space blanket.  Unused (this is good) except for Band-aids and the occasional Tylenol or Advil.  Rehydration powder packets added to first aid kit after The Offspring got heat stroke.

Sheet sleeping sack and quick-dry travel towel (for mountain huts).  Used less than expected: the huts, except the most remote ones, are getting more like hostels or even hotels.  Bandanna.

Soap and (bar) shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, disposable razor, panty liners, Diva Cup.  (Way less hassle than any other method of dealing with the red tide, especially while traveling.)

A roll of toilet paper.

Camera, very old Kindle, chargers for both, and plug adapter.  No phone or other wireless/web device: a bit tricky given that phone booths and internet cafes are vanishing.

Maps, sections of guide books, compass, head lamp, notebook and pencils, train tickets and room reservations, passports, wallet, copy of Offspring's birth certificate. Harmonica: unused.

Lightweight backpack, lightweight shopping bag.  Quart and gallon zip lock bags used to store and sort food; two-gallon bags intended to keep clothing dry unneeded given the weather.  Very small purse, used to carry essentials while not hiking.  The lightweight backpack turned out to be too fragile and of limited use; a larger shoulder bag and/or better day pack would have been helpful.

Two 40-ounce stainless steel water bottles and a four-liter water bag (the latter unused).  The stainless bottles are kind of heavy; I'm tempted to go back to plastic.

Food.  I wished I had dehydrated beans and/or hummus to reconstitute.  After four days of hiking, I broke down and ate the Speck: I couldn't get enough protein from potatoes and polenta, even with nuts to munch on, and I was feeling increasingly weak.  Few beans and no tofu to be had in the mountain huts.  Pocket knife and a plastic fork, spoon, and knife.

Less is Less

Six weeks traveling in Europe out of a backpack, with no phone or internet, no email, no facebook, no twitter, no blogger, no news.  Connecting face to face with The Mate and the Offspring, with friends and family in Switzerland, with fellow travelers in the Dolomites and in Rome.  One ancient Kindle among the three of us.

The trip taught me something I've learned, and forgotten, before: I am happier with less.

Less stuff, an issue I've chronicled in this blog in the past.  But also less input.

Over the past few years, I've cancelled the catalogues, cut down on magazine subscriptions, unsubscribed from junk mail, eliminated telemarketing by getting rid of my land line.

But somehow I've signed on to a plethora of email subscriptions and Facebook groups resulting in a constant stream of messages about petitions to sign, political situations to be enraged about, foods to eat, exercises to avoid, and the reverse.  And then there's Twitter, Academia.edu, LinkedIn, and the news.  Always the news.

Cutting back is a project.  Going through six weeks of email and signing off all the subscription lists took hours.  Going through drawers and closets and cabinets full of stuff is an even bigger project, one I've been chipping away at for months.

But also: fewer commitments, fewer conferences, fewer projects tumbling simultaneously in the air.

The to-do list is long, there's a large pile of mail from the past six weeks, and preparation for the semester ahead is looming.  I don't know how long I can hold on to this thought.  But I'm going to try.

Where to Shop

The old mantra, reduce, reuse, recycle, begins with "reduce."  As in, better to avoid shopping altogether.  Learn to live with less.  Buy things that will last, and then get them repaired rather than replacing them as they wear.  But we do need food, shelter, clothing.  We need tools to cook with, we need furnishings for our homes.

The place to start, then, is buying used.  Double bonus: you buy something without the environmental costs of new manufacture, and you keep an item out of the landfill.  Some places to start: Better World Books, Craig's List, Goodwill, the Salvation Army, your local thrift or consignment shop.

When used won't do, you can shop from a store with explicit commitments to environmentally friendly materials and good labor practices across the supply chain.  Some of the better options:

American Apparel

Eileen Fisher

Hanna Anderson

NAU

Patagonia
Seventh Generation
simple shoes
Sustainable NYC
Ten Thousand Villages
World of Good

Among manufacturers that sell clothing in the US, only H&M, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Abercrombie and Fitch have signed on to the  Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

Green America recommends fabrics made out of bamboo, organic cotton, industrial hemp, recycled polyester, soy silk or cashmere, and wool.  They also publish The National Green Pages, a directory of green businesses, as well as a newsletter with information on fair trade practices across a variety of industries.

In the absence of transparency about labor rights, industrial methods, and green materials, we all need to keep reading about corporate practices and putting pressure on individual companies to improve their records.

Uninheritable Books

"Margaret and Helen Abbott."  So reads the inscription on the flyleaves of a handful of books on my shelves, books shared by my Great-Aunt Helen and her twin sister Margaret, who died before I was born, when they were first-year college students.

My family is rich in books, and in people who cherish books.  A copy of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis is inscribed "J. W. Robinson. 1900."  My father has added a post-it note: "I assume that this J. W. Robinson is Dr. John Robinson, who was my first dentist.  He was married to Aunt Margaret Robinson, a sister of my Grandfather Abbott." A leatherbound and undated copy of Pope's collected works, including his translations of Iliad and Odyssey is unfortunately uninscribed, as is a disintegrating 1904 edition of Edward Lear's Nonsense Books.

 

A copy of Dickens' A Child's History of England has "Dec. 4th, 1878. Lena Farrington. Winter Term." A copy of Webster's Ancient History might have been a school copy, as it has several names inside the front cover, including that of Ethel M. Woodbury, who might be the great-great-great-aunt Ethel who lives in family lore as the painter of numerous Maine landscapes, but I'll have to check with my father.

But these books aren't really books, if books exist to be used: they're too fragile. I could probably read the copy of Venus and Adonis without destroying it, but Nonsense Books is printed on paper that is falling to pieces, and even opening it to look for an inscription risks further damage.

My own book purchases, these days, are drifting more and more toward the electronic, on account of portability as well as a desire to be divested of stuff: a desire in conflict with the desire to hold on to those whispers of long-gone family members, some of whom I never knew but who live on in the memories of those I love and have loved.

But really, I'm not buying the books: I'm acquiring a license presumably valid until I die, but subject to termination before then by various market forces.  And books, of whatever physical or spectral form, are simply a record of some sort of cultural moment.  Some few survive for generations and even centuries, but most rightfully fall into oblivion.

A significant percentage of my books are intellectual productions whose value is already fading slowly as their scholarship or editorial practices are superseded.  Then there's a bunch of of contemporary fiction, poetry, prose.  I own no first editions, no rare books, just a profusion of volumes I use as I attempt my own analyses of old texts already much commented upon.  If I don't get rid of them before I die, someone will be stuck disposing of them.

The Offspring may one day sigh or chuckle over a jumble in which Ecofeminist Philosophy, Living Letters of the Law, and Klaeber's Beowulf rub up against tattered covers of The Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary, guides to hiking in the White Mountains and in the Alps, and The Joy of Cooking.

If anyone wants one of my books, it will be as keepsake, memento, not as usable text.  The electronic files will not be available as memorial objects carrying emotional freight forward into another generation; those who remember me will have to recall mind and body: a moving target.

And for today, that's okay with me.

Green Garbage

Throwing away huge quantities of paper may not seem like much of a green moment, even if they're going into a recycling bin.  But read on...

I changed offices last summer.  In the process, I got rid of a fair number of books.  Duplicates and old editions of teaching texts went off to Better World Books, where they'll be resold or donated.

But then I moved all the files from my desk drawers and file cabinets to the furniture in the new office, leaving them pretty close to full.

I have notes from courses I took in graduate school, from studying for doctoral exams, from courses I've taught going all the way back to when I first came to this university ... in 1998.  I've typed up a lot of those notes, and revised a lot of the materials, but I still have folders full of hand-written notes and photocopies of handouts.  Semester, after semester, after semester.  Plus hand-written notes and photocopies of articles related to papers I've given at conferences and subsequently (eventually) published.

And so I'm facing a choice made across the nation in all kinds of contexts: downsize or upsize. 

The average size of a home in the US ballooned from 1400 to 2700 square feet between 1970 and 2009.  Meanwhile, the average household size decreased by half a person.* So what accounts for the near doubling in the size of all those houses?

Stuff.

We own more clothing, more electronics, more furniture, more kitchen appliances... more of pretty much everything than people in our parents' generation. And we build ever bigger houses to store all of that stuff.  We probably store more files, too.

Quick calculation: what percentage of the items in your home have you actually used in the past 12 months?  (Challenge: take a walk through your house, including basement, attic, garage, and really pay attention.)

So I have a choice: I can buy a bunch of file boxes and file those excess papers and store them someplace, or I can go through the files and get rid of the papers that I don't need any more.  Duplicates of exercises that I've since revised; hand-written class notes I'll never refer to again; rosters, attendance records, printouts of articles; photocopies handed down from my predecessor.

So I've been going through a folder or two a week and getting rid of almost everything.  One file drawer is almost empty.  By the end of the term, I may no longer need a filing cabinet.

Meanwhile, I'm also going through computer files and deleting old versions of assignments, syllabi, handouts, and materials for use on line.  It turns out that data storage, though it feels free because it's paperless, in fact uses a huge amount of energy.

If we keep stuff under control, we'll never be tempted to move to a bigger space just to store more stuff.  As often happens with these kinds of choices, the environmental impact is mirrored in a positive impact on the wallet.

-----

* Isn't statistics fun?

Close The Door! A Public-Service Rant

Apparently, many New Yorkers are unaware of the fact that if they hold the door open, cold air will blow in and warm air will blow out.

Actually, it's worse than that.  See, heat rises.  So the warm air inside the door rushes with gale force out and up into the sky, to be replaced at floor level by the heavier cold air, which in turn pushes what's left of the warm inside air up ... and out the door.

So when you (whoever you are) stand there holding the door wiiiiiiide open, waiting for your entire posse, or perhaps family, still ten feet away, to approach, going in or out, you're letting the warm indoor air out and replacing it with frigid air from outside.

And, in all likelihood, freezing a security guard or a doorman or the employees of a building, and perhaps also its patrons and/or inhabitants.

And a thermostat is triggered, and somewhere in the subterranean depths a furnace turns itself back on and burns a couple gallons of oil to heat the frigid air you just let in.

So for the love of God, or the environment, or even just your fellow human being ... please, please, shut that door.

</>soapbox

Ten of Tens: Adjustments

My plan for this month was to try to eat more local food, and I've done a pretty lousy job. The only thing that saves me from having to admit complete failure is that The Mate managed to make one trip to the farmer's market, where he discovered that even in January, you can get a decent variety of vegetables.

On the other hand, even though it was on the list for some time later in the year, I've been making a consistent effort to pack my own lunch.  My days are long, and it's both psychologically and practically difficult to pack two full meals, so I've been getting home famished -- yet somehow, since the beginning of the year, I've completely avoided take-out food and all the styrofoam and plastic packaging that accompanies it. 

This morning, the lunch opportunities in the fridge were pretty slim.  No leftovers; half a loaf of bread. I made a sandwich, then ate it for breakfast instead of cooking hot cereal.  I cut up a bunch of carrots, but even in combination with some almonds in my desk, that wasn't going to make a meal.

And then I remembered the pea soup I stashed in the freezer a couple of weeks ago -- just for moments like this. I pulled out a mason jar and stuffed it in my lunch bag.  Saved. This weekend, I'm going to crazy on cooking up more soup.

For next month, I'll keep going on packing lunches and substantial snacks, and planning more carefully for what I need and when.  It's become more habitual, and in another few weeks it should be pretty solidly ingrained.  And I'm going to try again on the local food front.

Sometimes You Have To Give Up

Item one: a metal laundry drying rack purchased about three years ago, a few months after which the screws holding it together started falling out.  I replaced the first, and the second, and the third... and it hung on for a while, remaining useable.  And then a couple of weeks ago about five of the screws fell out all at once.

And I gave up.  I realized the amount of time I could spend trying to keep that thing fixed just wasn't worth it any more.  I took the thing downstairs and threw it in the recycling bin.

At the moment, we have no drying rack.  I'm thinking about possible creative solutions, alternatives to buying another rack that will have to live in the corner of the bathroom.  Maybe several lines of cord strung near the ceiling of our half bath?

Item two: a pair of long-finger bike gloves.  I put them on yesterday and discovered I'd let them mildew after wearing them in the rain.  They're so beat, if I try to wash them, they're likely to disintegrate.  They went in the actual trash.

I've looked in a couple of stores for a replacement, but haven't seen anything I like.  I have a pair of leather gardening gloves I've owned for years.  I might try those as an alternative for days cold enough I want to cover my fingers but not cold enough for winter gloves.

Yes, sometimes even I throw something away.