Avoid Temptation to Eat Out by Donating to a Good Cause

A few days ago on the Go Green without Going Broke group on Facebook, I wrote:

Thought I'd check in and see how people are doing with this month's extreme challenge: Stop Eating Out for a Month. I've been doing great, but I just learned that several of my favorite restaurants in Raleigh are donating all profits on Tuesday to relief efforts in Haiti. I think that might warrant going out to eat. What do you all think?

Almost immediately after I posted it, I came to my senses. If I'd already been planning to eat out on Tuesday, then choosing one of those restaurants would have been a great plan. But since I'm choosing not to eat out this month, going to a restaurant just to help Haiti is kind of backward. Instead, why not skip the restaurant and go straight to helping Haiti?

So that's what I did. I estimated how much I would have spent eating out at a restaurant and donated that amount to the Red Cross.

Why Did I Choose the Red Cross?

There are numerous ways to donate both money and other goods to Haiti. One Green Generation has a decent round-up of ways to help, and Cheri at Renaissance Garden (who has been blogging about Haiti long before the earthquake) makes a good argument for not donating to the Red Cross.

But as I kept seeing mention of the Red Cross and Haiti in the news, it reminded me of a day seven and a half years ago when I came home from work to find police cars and fire trucks surrounding my apartment building and yellow caution tape all around the front of my own apartment. The apartment above ours had caught fire, and though very few of our belongings were lost (thank you so much, amazing firemen!), the apartment itself was completely ruined due to water damage. We weren't even allowed to enter the apartment to grab a toothbrush or a change of clothes.

Enter the Red Cross, which set us up for the night in a motel along with a bag of toiletries and food.

That minor crisis in our life was a drop in the bucket compared to what the Haitians are facing, but I know from personal experience that the Red Cross does good work in times of need, and I'm actually embarrassed that it's taken me this long to pay them back.

How Can You Donate?

If you'd like to donate to the Red Cross's Haiti relief efforts, simply text "Haiti" to 90999. $10 will automatically be charged to your phone bill. (Please note that your phone company takes no money from the transaction.)

If you want to donate more than $10 or if you don't have free texting, you can also donate through the American Red Cross' website.

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Who Cares about the Freakin' Polar Bears!

First off, I need to apologize to my mom for the potty language that appears in this post. Although I have a bad addiction to the words darn, crap, and freakin', I don't usually mess around with the hard words. But today is Blog Action Day and the topic is "climate change," and that topic warrants a little bit of a potty mouth.

First in this great quote from an article on Grist yesterday:

They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an “Oh, shit” moment—an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself.

My "oh, shit" moment came almost a year ago when a friend sent me this video about the effects of climate change on a small island nation called Kiribati, where my friend had served in the Peace Corps.

Up until then, I had a vague idea that climate change might someday have an effect on people, but after I watched that video, it dawned on me that climate change was not a might or a someday. It was already affecting people, and it was only going to get worse. I believe my exact thought was:

"Who cares about the freakin' polar bears!!!!"

Why did environmentalists persist in peddling pictures of stranded polar bears when climate change was going to have a drastic effect on people? Already is effecting people?

Now, don't get me wrong. I think polar bears are beautiful creatures (and look super cute drinking a Coke in those ads at Christmas). But when I see pictures of polar bears losing their homes due to climate change, I think, "That is so sad."

When I see pictures of people losing their homes due to climate change, I think, "Oh, shit."

If you haven't had your "oh, shit" moment yet, take some time to explore the Climate Orb (put together by the TckTckTck Campaign) to put a human face on the climate change issue. Then tell your leaders that you support a global climate deal that is ambitious, fair, and binding.

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Do Personal Changes Matter? Yes, yes, yes!

Do personal changes matter?

That seems to be the big question circulating around the green blogosphere this month.

First, there was the Orion Magazine article, Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change, in which the author asserts:

I’m not saying we shouldn’t live simply. I live reasonably simply myself, but I don’t pretend that not buying much (or not driving much, or not having kids) is a powerful political act, or that it’s deeply revolutionary. It’s not. Personal change doesn’t equal social change.

Then there was this article in the New Yorker where Elizabeth Kolbert criticizes No Impact Man's "eco-stunt:"

So committed is Beavan to his claim of zero impact that he can’t—or won’t—see the deforestation for the trees. He worries a great deal about the environmental consequences of Michelle’s tampon use and the shrink-wrap around a block of cheese. But when it comes to his building’s heating system, which is apparently so wasteful that people are opening windows in the middle of winter, he just throws up his hands.

(Reading this article, I wanted to rush to No Impact Man's defense - his experiment did matter because of all the people he has influenced...Me! for one. But Kolbert also describes the eco-stunts of a couple other popular environmentalist writers, and I was completely turned off by her descriptions of Vanessa Farquharson, whose book I had on my to-read list.)

Grist mentioned the Kolbert article twice (here and here), and also ran a piece about Henry David Thoreau referring to the same biography of Thoreau that Kolbert discusses in her critique of eco-stunts (Walden Pond being the first and most famous eco-stunt).

Fake Plastic Fish took up the argument on Wednesday, listing several bloggers responses to the Orion article, and then interviewed Diane MacEachern of Big Green Purse for her post today. Diane defends using consumer power as a political act by stating:

For thirty years, my focus was really on public policy. I thought passing laws to address environmental issues was the most effective way to make a difference. We still need stronger laws, and enforcement of regulations on the books. But the last few years, I've become convinced that the marketplace moves faster than the halls of Congress! Companies fight legislation tooth and nail - but consumer dollars are their lifeblood. If we use our money to make a difference, we can accelerate the transition to a cleaner, greener world.

So what are my thoughts on the subject?

1) Personal change leads to political change.

Personal change probably doesn't matter very much. The author of the Orion article points out that the majority of waste and energy use comes from commercial, industrial, and agricultural sources, so personal changes are just a drop in the bucket.

That's true, but the people who are taking shorter showers, recycling, and bicycling are also the people who are lobbying for water, land, and resource conservation and proposing solutions like cap and trade. Personal change is like a gateway drug. You start with the easy stuff by greening your own life, and pretty soon you're looking around for some harder drugs to ease your addiction: "Now how can I help my office go green? Or my school? Or my city? Or my country?"

I've pointed out before that real wide-scale changes will require organization and policy change, but those big changes start with individuals making a choice to live differently.

2) Corporations are people too.

We have a tendency as environmentalists to anthropomorphize corporations, labeling them as "good" and "evil" as if a corporation has the ability to make good or bad decisions. Corporations do not make decisions. They are made up of individuals who make decisions - ordinary people who are just as capable as you or I to make personal choices about water use, energy consumption, and waste management. But whereas my decision to go green affects very few beyond my small sphere of influence, if the executives of Walmart decide to go green, it has a monumental impact.

And why would the executives of Walmart decide to go green? Maybe in part because they care about the environment, but it's more likely because they recognize the economic value of a green image and green products. They are responding to consumer demand.

The author of the Orion article doesn't want us to label ourselves as consumers because "we reduce our potential forms of resistance to consuming and not consuming." He's right that we have many other "resistance tactics" available to us, but it's wrong to say that consuming is an invalid method of protest.

We are consumers, and because we consume, we have immense power. We can choose to buy a product because of the materials it's made of. We can choose to buy a product because it's less toxic. We can choose to buy a product because it's made in a safe, fair environment. And we can choose not to buy a product at all.

We do have power as consumers, and when enough people choose to wield that power, the marketplace listens. Corporations have to listen, or they will die.

3) It matters to me.

I made my very first environmentally related decision twelve years ago when I became a vegetarian. It was a major lifestyle change, but I didn't do it because I expected my actions to have a huge rippling effect or that my personal choice would change the meat industry. I did it because I personally could not feel good about eating an animal that was raised and slaughtered inhumanely. My decision to give up meat was not based on a desire to change the world. I became a vegetarian because I believed it was the right thing to do.

Every eco-related choice I've made since then has followed the same line of reasoning. I hope that my actions will influence others. I try to be involved in my community so I can effect change not just in my own life, but in the world around me. But what matters most is that I'm being the best person I can be.


I intended to write this post last week for one of my Weekend Ramblings, but I never got around it it. So many people have blogged on this topic since then that I feel like I'm late to the party, and it would have been easy to say, "There's nothing left to say." But because I believe in the power of personal change, I believe my voice matters. So here I am, adding my individual voice to all the others, asserting that my changes matter. Your changes matter. Our collective changes can make a better, greener world.

Photo by Marco Belluci

This post was included in the Carnival of the Green #195 at EcoTechDaily.

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Clean, Green, and Fair for Everyone

This post is my submission for the Green Moms Blog Carnival. The topic is "I believe...." Check out the musings of all the great Green Moms on February 9 at The Smart Mama.

Last August, Slow Food USA held a festival in San Francisco to celebrate and promote their belief in local and sustainable food. The slogan of the Slow Food movement is "good, clean, and fair food," but over and over when I read media reports describing the event, it was labeled as an elitist gathering for wealthy yuppies. Admission to the various pavilions and panels was expensive, and the many displays of high-priced artisinal foods made slow food seem out of reach for the average American, used to Walmart and McDonalds prices.

Sadly, the stereotype of the 21st century environmentalist is a white college graduate driving a Prius, shopping at Whole Foods, wearing over-priced organic cotton clothing, and reprimanding everyone for not doing the same. The stereotypical image of environmentalism from the last century was a poorly dressed, Birkenstock-wearing, treehugging hippy...but still white.

But is environmentalism really just a movement of the white and affluent, who have the time and the means to enjoy a green lifestyle while the poor and minority populations are left behind?

I don't think it has to be that way. I believe there is a green hat to fit every head, blonde or brunette, buzzcut or dreadlocks, black or white (or as First Son would say...peachy or browny.) I believe in clean, green, and fair for everyone.

But how do we make going green accessible and desirable for everyone?

Here are some possibilities:

Promote Energy Savings

The media has done a good job of selling compact flourescent lightbulbs as energy and money savers. But I recently learned that an energy efficient home retrofit can shave as much as 30% off of the average home energy bill. Why isn't the media advertising that? For low-income families who can't afford to retrofit their homes, the U.S. government has created a Weatherization Assistance Program. But let's face it. Government sponsored programs are slow and often ineffective. If we're going to have clean, green, and fair for everyone, we need more programs, perhaps sponsored by charities and non-profits, that help low-income people make their homes energy efficient.

Promote Green Jobs

If the future of America is clean, renewable energy, we are going to need lots of people to make that happen. Instead of bailing out companies that have already demonstrated bad business practices, we should be investing in future jobs: installing and maintaining solar panels, building wind farms, retrofitting houses, and rebuilding America's infrastructure. We will also need people to develop these new green technologies. Going green will provide thousands and thousands of people with a new reliable source of income.

Promote Affordable Public Transportation

As energy prices rise, it's going to be more and more important to improve public transportation options in our cities. Besides reducing energy consumption and pollution, a good transit system can stimulate economic development by revitalizing aging downtowns and urban neighborhoods. Clean and affordable public transportation will be especially beneficial to poor and minority populations, the majority of which live in cities.

Promote Health Benefits

Huge numbers of low-income people live near oil refineries, garbage dumps. waste treatment plants, polluted waterways, and other sources of pollution, leading to higher incidents of cancer, asthma, and other illnesses among the poor. A cleaner, greener world would lead to fewer health problems among the poor, as well as less money spent treating those health problems.

Promote Urban Gardening

Organizations such as Urban Farming, Food from the Hood, and The Garden Project teach urban gardening techniques to low-income people, at-risk youth, and former offenders, providing educational opportunities, skills, and food for people in need. Additionally, urban gardening can provide independence and self-sufficiency, important qualities in hard times.


I believe that if we don't show environmentalism in a way that will attract more diversity, we will fail. Our green umbrella must cover a broader group of people or we will never build up the momentum to have a long term impact. If we are going to succeed, we need to declare, "Clean, green, and fair for everyone!"

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Last Child on the Urban Farm

This post is my submission for this month's APLS Blog Carnival. The subject is "children are our most precious resource." Check out all of the APLS bloggers on December 15 at Going Green Mama.

Yesterday was a fluke warm day (nearly hit 70 although the high was predicted at 57), so I took the boys outside to let First Son practice riding the bike he got for his birthday. We rode along the sidewalk in our apartment complex, and then the boys asked if they could park their bikes and play for awhile. There's an island of trees in a cul-de-sac-like part of our complex where the boys and I played in the leaves a couple of weeks ago. There weren't any leaves yesterday, so the boys played in the dirt, stacked rocks, and pounded sticks together.

I am pretty sure we are technically not supposed to play there, but I'm also pretty sure that the management of our apartment complex frowns on children playing anywhere on the complex grounds.

None of the apartment complexes we looked at within walking distance from Raleigh had playgrounds. This one was better than most with its pool, tennis court, volleyball court, and grassy areas, but people never pick up their dog's poop in the grassy areas, and a month ago, the complex put up a sign on the tennis court basically stating that the court was for tennis only. (I had been letting the kids play in there since it was a flat, fenced-in area good for bouncing balls and not getting run over by cars.)

There is a nice wooded playground within walking distance from our apartment, but we would have to risk our lives on a dangerous road to walk there. There is another small playground that's part of an apartment complex down the street (again I think technically we are not allowed to play there). The street to get there is not safe for small children riding bikes, but we walk there now and then.

My kids are five, three, and one, and because of the urban lifestyle my husband and I have so far chosen to lead, my kids are growing up with very limited outdoor experience.

I compare this with my own childhood and feel a deep sense of remorse. I can remember being as young as five and playing freely in the field in front of our house with my older sister. Later, my friends and I ran wild in the woods, building treehouses, climbing trees, occasionally falling into the pond, bringing home toads and frogs and snakes, getting covered in poison ivy.

I can't imagine letting my kids have the kind of freedom in nature that I enjoyed. Not only because the world seems less safe now, but also because there's just no place like that around here where they can play.

In Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv points out that children today are taught about the rainforests and global warming, but very few of them are having real, hands-on experience with the outdoors. They have an intellectual connection to their environment, but not an emotional connection. And when they grow up, they will have memories of books and pictures and classrooms, but not memories of tangible experience: swaying in the branches of a tree, squishing in the mud, being peed on by a frightened toad!

The modern disconnect from nature that our children are experiencing makes me wonder what the future holds for environmentalism. Without experiencing nature, will the next generation have any desire to preserve it? As Louv says, "No child can truly know or value the outdoors if the natural world remains under glass, seen only through lenses, screens or computer monitors."

While reading Last Child in the Woods, I contrasted the neighborhood I live in with some European neighborhoods that Louv mentions while describing Timothy Beatley's book Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities:

"He describes an astonishing array of European green-city designs: cities with half the land areas devoted to forest, green space, and agriculture; cities that have not only preserved nearby nature, but reclaimed some inner-city areas for woods, meadows, and streams. These neighborhoods are both denser and more livable than our own. Nature, even a suggestion of wildness, is within walking distance of most residences."

Louv goes on to describe several cities' greenways, city-encircling bike paths, and urban farms. My first thought when I read this was, "I need to move to Europe." That's not a very practical solution, though, and a better one would be to work to make that kind of green urban development happen here in the United States.

Here are some ideas on how to do that:

• You can get involved in your area by contacting your city's planning commission and letting them know of your desire for more green spaces, pedestrian and bike friendly streets, and natural play areas for children.
  

• You can attend town meetings and voice your opinions about green building and park planning.

• You can also join the 40 million Americans involved in the No Child Left Inside coalition, whose goal is to create outdoor learning opportunities in classrooms and schools across the nation.
  

• Or you could start a farm to cafeteria program at your children's school or help them plant a school garden, both of which help children understand the source of their food and provide them with a healthier alternative to typical cafeteria lunches.

• In Raleigh, city officials recently posted the Public Review Draft of their 2030 Comprehensive Plan, the plan for Raleigh building, growth, and expansion for the next 20 years. They are asking all Raleigh residents to review the plan and provide feedback at their Public Input Portal.

• Triangle residents can also get involved with the Triangle Emerging Green Builders, who host a Green Drinks every other month, including a local speaker on green and sustainable building.

I think it's simple and logical to say that children need to spend more time outdoors, but it's harder in our increasingly urban society to provide children with outdoor experiences. It's important, though, for us as environmentalists to find ways to increase children's connection to nature if we want our torches passed on to the following generations.

As one woman in Last Child in the Woods explains, "Connecting [our daughter] with nature offers...a place to learn about love and respect for all of life - to see, touch, and smell where it all comes from, and to understand why she'll be called to do her part to take care of things."

Photo by lepiaf.geo

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A Little More Action

My cousin's wife posted the following comment on my last post:

It's good to know that there are other people out there coming to the same realization as we are and wanting to do something about it.

Amen to that.

Until I discovered all the eco-bloggers out there, I always felt like I was alone in my opinions. It was a pretty great feeling to find other people who think like me.

Now that I've been blogging for a couple of months, sometimes I become delusional that everyone is making or has made the same changes I am. I'm surrounded on the Internet by so many awesome people doing so much good in the world. My inbox is constantly overflowing with newsletters and email from Grist, New American Dream, Co-op America, and the Sierra Club. I follow several blogs on a daily basis, and spend more time than I should thinking about the ideas I've read and the ideas I have for my own blog.

And then I'm forced to make that occasional foray into the real world...Like when I had to go to the mall a month ago...Woah, that was a wake up call that not everyone is avoiding consumerism.

So back to my cousin-in-law's comment.

I bet there are more people than we realize out there who have the same beliefs as us. I bet there are plenty of people who would agree that in this time of economic turmoil, it's time for some serious changes. So why do we sometimes feel so alone?

Maybe it's just that we're not talking loudly enough.

If you have an opinion, speak up. Tell people about it. And not just on your blog. Make a spectacle of living green. Get active in making the change happen. And as we transition to a new presidential administration, make sure your government officials know what you think.

If you're like me and have never written a letter to anyone in government before, here's some helpful information:

• To contact President-Elect Barack Obama
  
• To contact the President and Vice-President
  
• To contact your Representative
• To contact your Senators

I know what I want to see from our next Administration. I want a President who reinstills confidence in America. I want a President who's more concerned about doing what's right for the American people than in whether or not he's going to get a second term. I want a President who cares more about what the average American thinks than about what the mega-wealthy with the funds to support his campaign think. I want a President who does not believe that the American dream is based on consumerism or that the way to survive a national crisis is to encourage people to spend more money. I want a President who sees global warming as a real threat and who builds up the United States as a leader in environmentalism. I want to see some huge changes in our agricultural system.

I know what I want...What do you want?

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Break Your Bottled Water Habit

While ranting to my mom yesterday about my personal peeve with the overpackaging of otherwise good products, I mentioned that I had written a letter to Seventh Generation asking why their paper towels are wrapped in plastic while their toilet paper is wrapped in paper. My mom replied, "I don't even know where to find Seventh Generation paper towels."

I thought my mom hit on a major point. Many, many Americans are in the same boat as my parents, who live in a small town in Kentucky. They want to be more environmentally conscious, but the only place to shop is Walmart (which I've already noted is lacking in the "green" department) and their town doesn't even collect recycling.

Luckily, there are still things they can do, and here's one from the super awesome folks at New American Dream:

Break the Bottled Water Habit, Win a Prize and Cut Your Carbon

When you want pure, healthy drinking water, you should reach for bottled water, right? Surprisingly, on neither a personal nor a global level are you making a healthy choice.

For each gallon of water bottled, two gallons are wasted; producing the plastic wastes the energy equivalent of a quarter-bottle’s worth of oil. And what’s in the bottle could just be tap water.

New American Dream and Corporate Accountability International is asking you to think about where the water in that bottle came from, where the plastic is going, and take the Break the Bottled Water Habit pledge(water.newdream.org) and drink to a healthy ecosystem.

During October, make a conscious choice to slake your thirst without drying up our planet’s resources. In addition to benefiting the environment, participants will have a chance to win a free condo for a week at a ski resort in Idaho. Visit the website (water.newdream.org) now to get started.

I can already hear the protests:

"But my tap water isn't clean!"

The truth is, at least 40 percent of bottled water is tap water anyway, and most tap water meets the EPA's standards for water quality. But if you're still concerned about the cleanliness of your tap water, you can always buy a filter.

"But bottled water is more convenient!"

Buy a reusable water bottle. Get a nice stainless steel model, or go the No Impact Man route: recycle a glass jar. Seriously, if my four-year-old and three-year-old can learn to carry a water bottle with them when they leave the house, you can do it too.

"I already reuse my water bottle. And then I recycle it."

Kudos on the reusing and recycling. The problem here is that the plastic used to make water bottles (PET) is not meant for multiple use and can lead to nasty stuff like bacteria and chemical-leaching.

"But bottled water tastes better!"

Okay, if you really like the taste of plastic, you've got me there, but at least consider that tap water costs on average .2 cents per gallon. That's 750-2700 times cheaper than bottled water.

Be a Conscious Shopper, and break your bottled water habit!

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