Life is a Process

Sheesh. We’re off to Vancouver for a week and it really has hit how completely “un-green” air travel is. Besides the obvious of fuel for the massive jet (though ours isn’t a huge one), the new TSA regulations are just awful. The silly 3oz - 1 quart bag - 1 bag per person rule is silly. That means that I have no choice but to use disposable cups for the coffee (picking it up after clearing security); bottled water (blech), again after clearing security; airport food (they don’t feed you on planes anymore - gone are the days of free meals and cheap wine) with yet more throw away wrappers and “dishes”; and those plastic ziplock bags. Ah! Big oil strikes again! When the preschooler is older, we’re probably going to bit the bullet and drive.

Many of the basic tenets of biology, particularly that of evolutionary biology, rely on substantial genetic diversity in the gene pool. Sadly, in big agriculture, those folks have totally forgotten some of those basics. The FDA, as well, is closing its eyes to basic biology. Our fields are filled with monocultures of plants (corn, soybean, wheat). GMOs are increasingly finding their way into our food, in spite of sufficient evidence to convince the Europeans that GMOs should not be eaten. Today, the FDA in all its wisdom has deemed it safe to munch on cloned animals. Remember, this is the same bunch of patronage appointees who decided that Vioxx was safe - then changed their minds after people died and a few lawsuits were filed.

Now, I’m off to hunt down (figuratively) a new supplier for my local, organic, grassfed beef and hogs, and to see if my supplier of super tasty local organic pastured chickens has her 2008 order form up yet.

In this season of silliness -er, holiday season, I’ve been thinking a lot about simplifying life. How do we as holistic parents teach our child to not be a consumer in this consumer-driven society? How do we break the cycle of consumerism? How do we focus on the non-material aspects of life in this very material world? I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who struggles with this way of thinking. Indeed, it is very timely and extremely helpful (for leverage with the materialistic relatives) that this FREE! movie came out. View The Story of Stuff and see if you will join me as I muster the courage to take the leap off the materialistic bandwagon.

Alternative gifts can include a donation on behalf of the recipient to a charity of your choice. A review of nonprofits is available at the American Institute of Philanthropy. Other possibilities include gift certificates for favors or services (”1 free massage”, “1 free housecleaning”, “1 free day sans child”).

A month or two ago, I found out that Duke Energy here in Indiana was planning on building a new! coal plant in Edwardsport down in the southern part of the state. Now, anybody who pays any attention to Indiana knows that we have coal plants littered throughout the state - so many that our local waters are seriously contaminated with mercury. Thou shalt not eat Indiana’s freshwater fish.

I did a little armchair activism and wrote to Indiana’s illustrious Republican governor to complain - little good I knew it would do. I received a response from a lackey -er, the communications officer from the Office of Energy and Defense Development. He told me that the Edwardsport IGCC coal plant is “clean coal” (an oxymoron at best), not a “19th century coal-fired plant”. In the next sentence, he told me that this plant and “other similar plants” (activists, are you ready?) will allow Indiana to use a “very abundant resource in a clean manner.”

Today, I read a piece that makes me want to smack these folks up in Indianapolis. Kansas (where they don’t believe in evolution) REJECTED a proposal for a new coal plant because of its potential carbon dioxide emissions. Read it in the Washington Post for yourself. Of course, Indiana doesn’t have problems with carbon dioxide emissions - they go over to other states. We also don’t care so much about auto emissions in general, except down where they’re building that new coal-fired plant.

I owe the Japanese a debt of gratitude for sending a probe to the moon that has taken awe inspiring high-definition pictures of this overburdened planet that we call home. As a pantheist, I find these images humbling, breathtaking, and in many ways spiritual. But no matter what you believe, there is only one earth in this universe and it is fragile, tiny, and dare I say it… insignificant. That’s right, the earth and everything that lives on it is insignificant from the universe’s perspective. Stuck in an uncaring universe, the earth toils along doing the things that planets do. It will continue to do this until it is destroyed by some cataclysmic event, such as the Sun going supernova, being sucked into a blackhole, or possibly when the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide. So why does this tiny pale blue dot matter, anyway?

Obviously it matters to its inhabitants, and should matter to humans in particular, given our complete dependence on it for survival. But here we are with our government denying that global warming is a problem, unable and unwilling to take the most basic actions to try and slow its effects. If only we could frame global warming as being so crucial to our survival as the so-called “war on terror”, maybe then we could spend billions of dollars doing something that would actually make a difference. The fight against global warming is ultimately about saving humanity, but we can only do that by saving the planet. Unfortunately, the whole anti-global warming camp focuses on the latter instead of the former. To them it’s one in the same and is completely obvious. What they really need to be telling the masses is that global warming is about the people, stupid! If people cared about saving the planet then they would be doing more to save the planet. People care about themselves, their children, and supposedly the troops, and are more likely to take action if the threat is brought closer to home. Something like “the terrorists are using the planet against us! Cut back on your C0₂ emissions to help the war effort!” might work.

Then again, I often wonder if the earth and the universe really would be better off without us. After all, humans are just as insignificant to the earth as the earth is to the universe.

I feel blessed, in some ways, that I grew up in an area that pioneered “blue box” recycling. Saving up the cans, paper and containers has become second nature to me now. It MADDENS me that we live just a teeny tiny bit outside city limits that (a) we have to pay for private trash collection; (b) no private trash collectors do recycling; and (c) we have to haul our recycling products to the local recycling center (where we often battle with the yellow jackets). Yet, if we lived in the city (well, large town), we have FREE curbside recycling though we would have to pay a modest fee (but much much less than our current fee) for trash collection.

I have heard, over the years, arguments that “bah, recycling isn’t worth it - it doesn’t save anything”. Well, I was elated to read this tidbit in the Economist. I can sleep again at night knowing that my recycling efforts are not in vain.

Well, I can sleep until I get the next package in the mail from Gaiam.com. This mail-order/web-store company purports to be a green company. We ordered some rechargeable batteries from them and I cannot count the bits of unnecessary packaging that arrived. One set of batteries were in a ziplock bag - so far so good. The AAA batteries came in this elaborate, shrink-wrapped package, surrounded with additional layers of cardboard and recycled plastic. The shrink-wrapped part would have been sufficient.

I usually consider myself to be fairly “crunchy” (i.e., green, a treehugger, at one with mother nature… you get the idea). Some time ago, I subscribed to Ideal Bite and I find it only occasionally gives me something useful. Generally it is just yet another email in the inbox to delete. However, this morning’s tip actually does contain something useful.

With gift-giving season right around the corner, the thought of the money spent on stuff nobody wants is on my mind. If you really aren’t altruistic enough to ask your loved ones to buy someone else a cow, you can avoid those long return lines by just giving your family a very specific list of what you do want instead. Check out this free general purpose gift registry. Even better (than it being free) is that it is apparently compatible with wishlists already in existence at Amazon, JC Penney and so on.

Back to crunchiness though…. This morning I dropped off some Holistic Moms flyers at a local Wellness Expo. I must admit, for all my perceived crunchiness, I felt amazingly soggy (mainstream, even) in that environment. Maybe I just need to go hang out there to absorb it all. Bloomington townies - if you’re reading this - please do go check out this expo. It should be quite informative if one is beginning a journey into holistic-ness.

When the toddler was an infant, this mother watched a lot of television - mostly MacGyver reruns but also some news (what else do you do when nursing a squirmy infant?). Around the time that the toddler (then infant) arrived, I declined to renew my subscription to the local newspaper - a silly newspaper that hasn’t figured out that more people would read it online (and generate ad revenue) if they offered that content for free. A few months ago, we dropped cable to basic and, having found ourselves not even watching TV much then, we dumped cable completely not long thereafter. Since then, I have pretty much stopped following news. Except on the rare occasion.

Let’s start with the news that I do read… Most of it is depressing. Just check out the headlines featured on Truthout. Death, doom, destruction. As a movie once put it, “The Decline of the American Empire.”

Occasionally, I stumble on news that just leaves me scratching my head. Like this CNN tidbit today. Really now, with all the resources for newborns and their parents (have you ever looked at the shelves in Barnes and Noble or Borders?), can’t CNN send its reporters out to, well, report on something other than babies? Though I must credit CNN for enlightening me today and reminding me why I object to plastic toys - some plastic-y toys undergo a chemical conversion to a date-rape drug when it is ingested (as most kids will do at least once). Yes moms, not only do you have to worry about lead in those toys, but it seems you also have to worry about those toys turning into rohypnol.

To be fair, Fox News also has me scratching my head. I think it is safe to say that most of the Fox viewership probably doesn’t have “green” tendencies. Which made me wonder why Fox has this “Go Green” section accessible from its main website. But then I started poking around at its content and realized that we don’t have to worry too much about Fox educating its viewers. This old one, Mow away your weeds, advocates tweaks to the lawn mower. Why does it feature a nice not-so-green gas mower? Why wouldn’t a push mower be featured? Well, at least they didn’t include a picture of this puppy.

But in searching for silliness for this post, I did find some good, not-so-silly news. At least one person - a politician no less - has decided that clotheslines aren’t so awful. Ontario’s energy conservation head honcho wants the clothesline bans to be rescinded across the province so that people can actually choose not to waste energy drying the clothes that can be just as easily dried on a line outside.

Move over Ebay… Craigslist… Freecycle… Make room for Neighborrow.

This nifty site lets one create a local (physical) neighborhood or a virtual one - with the purpose of sharing items. For example, I have a lawnmower that we use infrequently; I could mention that I have it and let my neighbor borrow it when hers is in the shop. This website keeps track of who has borrowed it, what they owe you (either credits or cash), how long it has been gone and so on. One can also trade items (e.g., DVDs) or recycle (one man’s trash is another one’s treasure).

Since this fits in well with the message we’re trying to teach to the toddler, I’m now off to set up a neighborrowhood for my area…