A Reminder to Self

I have always felt compassion and responsibility for the environment.  As a young teacher, I shared my enthusiasm for our planet and her resources with my students.  The books and chalkboards and overhead projector were often obscured by large and unruly plants, an enormous saltwater fish tank, blooming avocado pits suspended above water cups with multicolored toothpicks, guinea pigs, chicken eggs in incubators, and whatever living things my students brought to school.

Mother Earth was always there for me during challenging times.  A walk in the woods soothed my body and my mind.  The wind, sun, shade, rain, sights, sounds, and smells offered all that I needed to feel nature’s healing presence.  I always recognized the difference she made in my life.

In the early 80’s when we braved long lines for rationed gas, I followed the daily reports of the consequences and impact of our dependence on the remaining finite amount of fossil fuels we readily consumed.  I remember looking for ways to regularly conserve, protect, and respect mother earth.  I also engaged, passionately, in conversation and debate with friends and colleagues who seemed to tolerate my concern but not share it.  Somehow it always seemed to be the responsibility of the oil companies, or big business, or the government to do something about environmental issues.  After all, they would say, if they put things in place for us to be better able to recycle, reduce carbon emissions, and heal the planet, we would!  

But over time, in the hectic pace of life, I too slipped in my efforts and became complacent.  Sure, I recycled when I could and followed standard environmental practices.  But I stopped making the effort to do my best.  It became much easier to take the convenient route and to allow myself to forget that my actions (or inactions) mattered.

 I do hope we get to a place where environmental care is the norm and factored into everything we do.  But in the meantime, rather than blaming, I’ve realized that waiting is no longer an option. 

 I have recommitted to making the health of mother earth front and center as I go through my daily chores and to share the intention of my decisions with friends and family.  Somehow, it feels like I am making a difference when I catch myself throwing a piece of recyclable paper in the trash and take the extra steps to the recycling bin and when I remind myself that it’s a minor inconvenience to raise the temperature one degree above my air conditioning preference.  I can only hope it’s not too late.

This is a reminder to me to do my share and to hopefully be a positive influence to those around me.  At some point, every individual effort will become a contributing factor to that one moment in time when we reach the tipping point and spend more time healing, rather than harming, the only home we have.

Stewardship

Hen’s piece is well written and a good reminder to think in terms of Gaia. It’s easy to forget — or ignore — our dependence on a pretty narrow set of parameters for existing on this planet. Cultural anthropologists will tell us that we have been adapting to our technologies — rather than to our environment — for centuries. 

Once, many years ago, I had an epiphany sitting around a campfire with friends. In the midst of pleasant conversation it seemed so obvious that we all were proportionally large in our own minds, but so small in relation to our surroundings. We exist on a thin layer of the Earth’s crust — roads and macadam are simply skinny ribbons running on the surface of the beating heart of the planet. Not exactly breakthough thinking, but the impact of the thought/feeling remains remarkably fresh after all this time. We are fortunate to be alive, in this special place, in this special part of the galaxy, where we can see so many stars (if Earth were situated on another plane of the Milky Way, our sky would look impoverished).

Clearly we need to mind our own patch and personally conserve what we can. This is an ethical mandate. However, I think that our biggest contribution as individuals is to create an appetite for environmental stewardship. Hen’s friends who are waiting for public policy to supply answers are not wrong — we need multipliers to lever the large solutions necessary to maintain balance.

I have been a skeptic in regard to electricity as the answer to fossil fuel solutions, even as my workshop contains more and more 220 volt powered tools and battery powered options. After all, what power plants supply the energy — and how about the lithium-ion mining and production — and what do we do with the billions of batteries in landfills?

However, I’m pretty encouraged about the technology that is adapting to the environment. Three areas seem pretty interesting:

Organic battery technology: I’ve been reading about the “Methuselah quinone”, an approach to separating the electrolytic solution from the electrodes to be able to keep greater amounts of potential energy in storage. Cheaper and safer than lithium-ion, the ‘flow’ battery could also extend battery life significantly.

Residential energy storage and conservation: It has been said that 20% of the world’s carbon footprint comes from residential heating. Recycling EV batteries for home energy storage sounds eminently practical. A new Dutch program offers a re-cladding solution for insulating existing houses. This economical approach uses lasers to model the home in 3D CAD rendering for walls, windows, and doors to produce engineered panels which can be installed in a day. The system is integrated with heat pump and solar panels to literally bring energy costs to zero.

Energy Provider Improvements: It’s difficult to trust monolithic utilities, but In New York State, some progress is being made. Energy derived from coal decreased from 16% in 2001 to less than 1% by 2019.  New York actually consumes less energy per capita than any other state, except New Hampshire according to the US Energy Information Administration. Deregulation has separated Utilities providers from energy generation sources, such that they can pick and choose suppliers. Our local energy provider uses almost no suppliers that depend upon fossil fuel (9%). The state as a whole still delivers a significant amount of electrical power originating from fossil fuel (39%), but objectives are in place to reduce such dependence. These objectives can be met with some improvements in both supply capability and transmission line improvements.

My point is that we each need to examine the data to lend our voice to support new programs which can become everyday solutions. Stewardship is both personal and collective.  

Responsibility and Common Sense

Growing up in the 50’s, we didn’t know the word ”recycle.”  It wasn’t that we weren’t concerned about our planet but we lived more practically and used common sense more regularly.  For example, when the polio scare came, we all got vaccinated, stopped going to public swimming pools at the time, and  listened to the medical advice for how to stay safe. Moms immediately cut off our attendance at the public city swimming pools and schools simply required you to get the shot.  There was no great debate, we understood what polio was and didn’t want it to happen to our families so we responded responsibly and did what good citizens should do to prevent its spread!  Common sense and responsibility were words that people understood and tried to live their lives by.   I’m not saying it always worked but it was an underlying principle of our lives. My cousins in Pennsylvania were doing the same thing.

 Recycling was not a word on anyone’s vocabulary list at the time.  But living with what we had back then, practicality was a mainstay of life.  Our parents had come through the depression where rationing was a common practice. Gasoline for your cars was rationed, food stamps were distributed so that there was enough food to go around for our service men, home heating oil and even candles were rationed to guarantee everyone had a fair share. Practicality and responsibility and our primary concern was to do what was good for our country.  We had other serious problems back then but fortunately the war and polio were ended thanks to the hard work of American families chipping in and doing what was needed.

 In actuality we were recycling and didn’t know it.  There was no real awareness as to why we were doing things but we did them because they were for the common good.  My family never bought milk at the store.  It was delivered to a little metal box next to our front door every morning.  Milk, cream, eggs sometimes two quarts were right there on the front porch waiting for our breakfast needs.  And then when we ran out, Mom would leave a note for the milkman for 2 quarts of milk and a dozen eggs.  She’d put the note in the neck of the glass bottle he had delivered the day before, along with the other empty glass bottles and egg cases he had delivered before. That was the original recycling, we just never thought about it. Our soda bottles went back to the store for the 2 cent refund. All the bottles were glass and were cleaned and reused.

 A trip to the grocery store usually entailed a few blocks‘ walk to the nearest grocery store, usually A&P or Bohacks, pulling a grocery cart behind you so you didn’t have to carry everything home.  After we had collected our groceries we’d pick the check out that had the best packer.  The brown paper bags were made a certain size purposely to fit the cereal boxes and detergent boxes so that a minimum of bags were needed. A good packer would always fit everything in neatly saving the need for unnecessary bags. Upon arriving home and putting the groceries away, we neatly folded the bags carefully and stored them away until they were needed to cover the kids’ school books or other necessary purposes always to be reused. Recycling again!

 I’m not sure when the evil plastic bag came into use or the plastic beverage bottles that began to choke our oceans and landfills but  at time they were hailed as the newest modern conveniences that were easy to dispose of.   We kind of forgot our practical ways and our earth unfortunately is now suffering from our waste and disregard for the planet.  Now recycling has had to be a major movement for everyone to do his or her part. Not unlike the vaccine disputes raging, some people disregard the seriousness of caring for the earth.  A little more practicality and responsibility would be a good thing today!