Okay, so maybe I'm old and maybe you don't wanna listen to me because of that. And maybe I'm a little cranky by now because I think that sometimes people don't listen when they should. Don't whine about TL/DR, just give me a few minutes of your time and read this. Please.
Certainly I'm old enough to remember all the hoopla about recycling and saving the planet since before the very first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970. And I also recall quite clearly how most people forgot about it when it no longer became fashionable to worry about the health of the planet. These things go in cycles. Like wheels, they keep turning. Loving our home here on planet Earth means absolutely nothing unless we make habits of our changes; the second we let our guard down and we get lazy, that wheels starts spinning and we're off and thoughtlessly busy about other things.
When I read the buzz about all of the protests occurring this weekend, I have to admit I eye-rolled a little. (Hey, I already warned you that I'm a little cranky.) I had that reaction because I want to know How many of those protesters are actually living the reality of lowering their carbon footprint? Are they all talk or are they taking action? It's something I know a little bit about at a literally grass-roots level, and I have been making an effort for years.
What does it take?
Well, for one thing, sweat. How is the AC running in your house? I live near the Gulf Coast where it is helly hot nine months out of the year, and I have had problems with chronic heat stroke (among other quite serious health issues) so I need to be careful. But every year, I've been raising the temperature higher on the thermostat to see how far I can push this. This summer, I've hit the target; I know just what I can live with: I leave the AC off all day until after sunset. The house gets pretty hot by late afternoon: 87-90 F. But it's still cooler than outside. At night, I turn the AC on at 80 F so I can sleep. As a result, I've lowered my electric bill for the summer months by at least 50%. Yes, it's uncomfortable but I can live with that. And I'm using less power so that's good for the planet. Would you be willingly uncomfortable like this for a good cause?
Another thing: just how much do you drive your car? Do you do a lot of driving you don't truly need to? I live in the country outside a town. There are no stores within easy walking distance. There is no public transport of any kind. I am unable to use a bike and don't own one. So if I need to go somewhere, I have to drive. I wait until I have several errands to run. I plan my route so as to be economical with gasoline and time. For years, I've made a habit of keeping a notebook in my car to record where I've gone and why, to record gas purchases, to keep track of mileage. It's enlightening reading. I've managed to figure out how to drive less miles while making the same errands by simply taking a different route. I've learned something else, too: last year when my car was broken down for four months and I couldn't afford repairs, I discovered that I didn't really need to drive as often as I'd thought. So now I tend to drive about 4-6 times in a month. Yes, I am often at home (alone, as it happens) for as long as 10 days at a time. My total mileage for this year from January through mid-September: less than 500 miles. Could you do without driving like that?
What is your diet like? Do you eat meat? Do you cook? Or do you eat fast food? I haven't eaten meat in about 35 years. In my case, this was not voluntary (there's nothing to make you a vegetarian quicker than a doctor who says, "you can continue to eat meat OR you can live; you can't do both") but I'm glad to be vegetarian, and it's nice to know that it's a pretty good choice for the planet, too. Yes, I cook my own meals. I don't buy what I can make: like veggie burgers, bread, and marmalade. The food I make is healthier than the processed food that is available. I save a lot of money by not buying pre-made items, and I also greatly reduce package waste. When I have to heat up the oven to cook something, I think about what else I can make at the same time so that I don't waste the power that it takes to use the oven. Fast food is not an option, either financially or as common sense. My one exception to this is to buy French fries in December because my mother and I used to do that when Christmas shopping; it's a happy memory thing, and a once a year treat is no vice. Could you do that? Avoid fast food? Bake your own bread? Make marmalade like Paddington Bear? I do. Anyone could. But would you?
What do you do about garbage? Are you throwing out stuff you could otherwise re-purpose? I've reduced the waste that I send to the landfill by about 80% over the past ten years. I buy less and I re-use things more carefully. I re-use boxes and other containers by re-making them to be used in other ways. You know those spouts that are on the sides of half-gallon cartons of milk or juice? They make brilliant spouts for use on Mason jars if you just take five minutes to adapt them for the purpose. You know the plastic lids from bulk oatmeal containers? They make the best possible bowl scrapers if you take a moment with a pair of scissors. I look at everything carefully to see whether I might be able to get some other use out of it--just for example I recently re-purposed a glass sauce bottle to replace the broken container for a hummingbird feeder; it took me all of five minutes to accomplish. Would you do this with your "garbage"?
Do you have the option for recycling your waste? I don't. There is no trash pick-up in my neighborhood (I rely on the kindness of a neighbor who takes my garbage with his when he goes to the landfill monthly), so there is no recycling pick-up either. However, there is a recycler in a nearby town who pays for any type of metal waste, so I save up cans and other items to take several times a year. It's hard to be consistent about this because it's so easy to just throw something in the trash but I try to remind myself that I'd rather have the pennies for the few moments that it takes to rinse and store recyclables to be sold later. Would you take the time and make the space to do that?
What about your food waste? I have made a simple compost bin for the back yard, but I try to make sure that as little waste gets to it as possible because I want to use up all of the food that I can. Did you know that you can make excellent bread out of any leftovers? I frequently save leftover rice or cabbage centers or soup or even vegetable peelings for this. That bread takes about ten minutes to prepare and rises overnight. It makes a wonderful healthy breakfast food and, no, it does Not taste like cabbage. We just have to remember that vegetable trimmings are still edible. There are so many things that you can do with them. Seriously, what do you do with the outside leaves from cauliflower? Do you throw them away without thinking? Or do you eat them? You can eat them. You should. I do. Would you?
How often do you buy items like aluminum foil and plastic wrap? Do you just tear off some plastic wrap when you need to cover food? There are other ways to keep food fresh; it's a matter of habit. Why use plastic wrap to cover over a mixing bowl, if you can plop a plate or even a pan-lid on top instead? What else do you have that you could use creatively? Sure some plastic stuff is gonna sneak into the house (margarine or whipped cream tubs and the like), are you re-using those? It's better than single-use waste. You don't really need aluminum foil to line baking trays if you'll just oil and flour-dust them properly when baking and then wash them well afterward. Does that take time? Yes, it does. Is it worth it? Yes, it is. You can save money and resources at the same time. It's win/win. But are you willing to do it? By the way, at my house, I am so careful about use that rolls of plastic wrap and aluminum foil last for at least a year or more. Could you make them last longer than that?
What about paper towels? Do you really need them? In the past year, I have used a total of two rolls of paper towels. How many rolls do you use in a month? Probably more than I use in a year? You can do with less. I only get the cheap stuff that disintegrates easily but that's what I want it to do anyway--the expensive ones take forever to degrade and that's bad for the environment. Paper towels, to my way of thinking, are only for wiping up things like oily spills (it's unsafe to put items in the dryer that have had oil on them) or for cleaning up cat vomit (which I only care to deal with once and then forget about). If I want to dry my hands in the kitchen, a cotton towel works well and it can be re-washed. For napkins, I have a collection of pretty linen napkins that I purchased more than a decade ago for $1 at a yard sale, and I expect them to last another decade (hopefully I'll last that long, too). I just keep washing those napkins. Would you be willing to accept this small inconvenience? Or will you buy single-use waste?
Now that I've mentioned the dryer, what do you do about laundry? Do you use all the latest products that are full of nice chemical scents and that are pre-packaged so that the manufacturer decides what amount you need to use? Yeah, I don't do that. Those things are over-priced, over-processed, nasty for the environment, and mostly just not necessary even though they look and smell pretty. I buy off-brand, and I've experimented until I figured out the smallest amount that I could use to achieve cleanliness. Minimal. It works. In the days before I was vegetarian, I saved all my meat fats to make soap; it was excellent soap, much better than any I buy now, and one thing that I miss being vegetarian. Do I use my dryer despite the financial expense and the possible cost to the environment? Unfortunately, yes. Humidity here is regularly above 80%. In my experience, that can mean that if I hang sheets on the clothesline at 8 AM and leave them in overhead sunshine all day, they may very well still be damp when I bring them indoors at 4 PM. Sometimes, you've gotta make your choices by dealing with the issues at hand: I dry on the line and finish in the dryer. Common sense in the given circumstances. At least I am reducing the amount of time that drying is needed. Would you be willing to do this? Do you have a clothesline in your backyard?
Speaking of backyards, what is your yard like? You would undoubtedly think mine is a mess because I don't "garden" like most folks do. For years now, I have been chosen to allow my two-plus acres of land to re-wild naturally. Instead of a lush three-quarter acre lawn fronting the road, there's now a whole bunch of pines and sweet gums. As the trees grow taller, the eco-system around them changes and more species of animals have taken to living here. The more species an area can support, the healthier it is naturally. Maybe I can't save the whole planet but I can give it most of the space I've got. In the half-acre or so that I keep for myself, that is plenty enough for the house and the clothesline and a container garden. Could you do that with your land? Would you?
Speaking of container gardens, do you try to grow your own herbs and vegetables? Even if all you have is space for one 5-gallon bucket, you could grow something. Every little bit makes a difference. My land is mostly wetland and not arable. Container planting is my wisest choice and the easiest for me because I'm not capable of heavy labor like digging. What containers do I use? Whatever I have been given: cut-down plastic barrels, leftover plant pots (again plastic), old bathtubs. (The bathtubs are my favorite--it's fun to grow peas in a tub!) But "plastic" you say! Oh my. Well, I wouldn't buy them myself but I'm re-using items that are discarded, and that has to be okay enough. I can't always grow as much food as I'd like but I do as much work my health allows. Do you do as much as you can?
Of course there are many things I cannot do, things that I have no control over. My house is all-electric. That is not good and I'm aware of it but I can't move and I can't change it, so I try to be responsible as best I can. I am, admittedly, lackadaisical about taking re-usable totes to the grocery store. In my defense, let me say I plan to use those grocery bags for garbage since I refuse to buy garbage bags. Really why would I want to pay for something just so I can throw it away? Makes no sense to me. The thing that I can do is to be aware of making the best choices that are available to me.
There are so many ythings that I would love to try. I wish I could do solar. But the set-up costs are very far beyond my means and the principles are beyond my simple understanding. I want to replace my big water heater but the price is also beyond me. Failing that, I wish I could put a timer on the water heater but that, as inexpensive as it might be, alas, is also unaffordable as far as I am concerned. There are even more other things I'd like to do but can't. I'd love to try doing without my washing machine but haven't got the physical strength. The important thing is that I am doing what I can every day and that I'm paying attention to what I'm doing.
Sometimes I also pay attention to what other folks are doing. Today I kept seeing those headlines about climate protests. I wondered how many of those protesters got to the meeting place by car. Did they carpool? Did they use public transportation? Did they walk? If you're gonna protest, how responsible are you about how you're gonna get there? It's important. Live by creating the change you want to see.
So I decided to check a website today that allows you to calculate your Carbon Footprint. It asked a lot of questions, and I responded honestly. My total footprint was about 80% LESS than the average American. What is your footprint? Could you do better than you are right now? I would like to do better. There's always something more to try.
Zero waste is a lovely idea. Unfortunately, it is a utopian ideal that is both frustrating and impractical for most people. However, reducing your footprint in simple ways, by small actions taken day by day in a regular way, IS possible. It's very possible, it's not hard to do, and it DOES make a difference. The more people cooperate on this, the bigger difference can be made. I'm just one disabled old lady in Mississippi but I'm committed to doing this. Can you? I bet you can do more than I could ever dream of doing. Will you? I have no doubt whatsoever that almost everyone is capable of more than I could do. But would you?
It's just fine to protest about something you don't like. But it's much more important to LIVE the reality, to be willing to take the time, to be a little uncomfortable personally, to commit to doing what it takes. So, yeah, I'm a somewhat underwhelmed by noisy crowds. I'd rather see some substantive and realistic action on a daily basis. That's what will make a difference. Can you do that? Take up the challenge. Less talk. More action!
I still believe that life is good.
I'm working hard to make it that way.
What are you doing to make life better for the planet?
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