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The pines in the Sierras have been dying due to climate change, I've collected acorns with children. Some seeds we planted directly in the ground. Others were nurtured in a small nursery and planted out. Many people have been engaged in this effort.
But when done poorly, the projects can worsen the very problems they were meant to solve. Planting the wrong trees in the wrong place can actually reduce biodiversity, speeding extinctions and making ecosystems far less resilient.
Amid that worsening crisis, companies and countries are increasingly investing in tree planting that carpets large areas with commercial, nonnative species in the name of fighting climate change. These trees sock away carbon but provide little support to the webs of life that once thrived in those areas.
“You’re creating basically a sterile landscape,” said Paul Smith, who runs Botanic Gardens Conservation International, an umbrella group that works to prevent plant extinctions. “If people want to plant trees, let’s also make it a positive for biodiversity.”
There’s a rule of thumb in the tree planting world: One should plant “the right tree in the right place.” Some add, “for the right reason.”
What a great idea. Squirrels plant acorns in our yard all the time and I’d like to share the seedlings instead of pulling them out. Just clueless about how to distribute them.
Susan, in the spring there are frequently tree giveaways. Perhaps you could pot them up and offer them up. I keep, wash and reuse old plant containers. I'm working to reforest my garden which gets expensive. I hope you can let a few grow and find someone to use what you can't keep.
Lol ! "It just so happens". Why am I so NOT surprised?!!! Jessica, you ROCK! Thank you so much for making things so easy for the rest of us to take action! I hope you realize how effective and important your contributions are.
Very helpful! I learned extra soft toilet paper is responsible for deforestation. This was new info to me. I already hang my clothes, even though it’s a pain. In Europe, where I live, this is pretty common. Didn’t know big banks were bad, although in principle I guess I knew that. Composting in a big city is complicated. What happened to those worms that eat your garbage I heard about years ago? Thank you, Jessica, for beaming your light.
Their tp is made from bamboo and it’s great. My daughter got us started with this. I also order many household products from Grove, a very ecologically conscious company committed to becoming plastic free.
In my planned community, clothes lines are not permitted. However, there are portable/foldable laundry racks that you can place inside your home for drying clothes and linens, etc. Safe way to dry items while this smoke and haze crisis continues outside!
Yes, and actually I just found out yesterday but if you have seasonal allergies, it’s not a good idea to hang your clothes in the spring. I just realize that’s probably the reason my kid has been having such a hard time. I’m gonna have to start drying their sheets inside.
I saved a large plastic bag and throw it over the top of a door, and put a sheet on top to dry. I have 2 clothes racks and have put them together to put a quilt over to dry.
This brand was recently tested and includes PFAS, so you may want to look into another brand or consider a bidet seat to reduce TP use. Those of us in the environmental movement were not happy about this revelation.
Some cities have services that they will pick up your food and yard waste to compost it if you can't do it yourself. Also, a bidet is a suggestion to reduce toilet paper consumption. I recently discovered that some T.P. contains PFAS, so it's another concern added to loss of trees.
If you're a homeowner and can afford a remodel, the #1 thing you can do is electrify your appliances. This directly cuts out your use of fossil fuels at home (plus it's healthier for you and your family).
The Inflation Reduction Act provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. See how much you can save with Rewiring America's calculator: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
Jessica’s suggestions are spot on. I would add that the next time you find yourself in that special, peaceful natural area near where you live, sitting quietly, imagine that area despoiled, ravaged by the effects of climate change. If it is a wooded area, imagine it burned to the ground. A peaceful stream or lake or shore, imagine it polluted or altered to the point that it can no longer support a complex ecosystem. We are so inextricably linked to our world and this universe, far beyond what we can imagine. Our actions have consequences. Start at the individual level, and then get involved locally. It will not be easy, as the power of money is strong and unrelenting. Where I live, Chattanooga TN, is realizing enormous growth in construction of condominiums. For a community that once paraded itself as “the Boulder of the South”, where ideas like sustainability were important, it has drifted away from such laudable ideals. Politicians have seemingly lost vision as to what life could look like with sustainable approaches, and opted to feed from the trough of unsustainable development, where more is better. In this way of thinking, more is never enough, and thus the damaging cycle is never broken.
I recommend joining a local environmental group or creating one. There are people everywhere that care and politicians need to see a group of people that care. Write letters to the editor and show up and open meetings to voice your concerns. You can make a difference. I joined Sierra Club, but find your people.
Yeah I think bamboo TP may be iffy. I love Who Gives a Crap but yes the Target Everspring is good too. 100% recycled paper is best. And a bidet attachment!
People can also make pee rags out of soft rags and poop rags and wash them as we use to wash cloth diapers. If you have a compost heap, pee on it or pee into a container and put that on the compost. The minerals in our pee are great for the garden
I was told that one can either dump their pee into a compost pile and let it "cure" for a couple of months, or dilute it with 15 parts of water per 1 part pee and use immediately on plants. It is a wonderful source of nitrogen!
Jessica, I had NO IDEA about my favorite soft squishy toilet paper...Charmin! Have I just buried my head in the sand? I have somehow missed that they were clear cutting boreal forests to give me soft toilet paper. I feel ashamed that I didn't know, and I will go from a grade F to a grade A when purchasing toilet paper to repent for my wasted opportunity to do better. Ironically, just the other day I ordered laundry sheets that dissolve and require not plastic bottle. We can all make baby steps...Thank you so much for your list!
I would be happy to donate to them if they are not like SO many charities that when you donate, they turn right around and ask for another donation. I feel like my donation goes towards them printing another mailer to ask me for more money. Will RDC use my money for action rather than asking me for more money immediately? Or, is there a way to make a "one time donation"? Then I can choose when to donate to them again? Same thing with politicians...donate so they can ask for more! Ugh. It makes me not want to donate to any of them. I just want them to put my money to work towards the cause itself. I don't mean to sound cynical. It just feels like I get inundated sometimes...
More than annoying. Makes me stop donating. SPLC is the worst at sending out loads of mailers and I very much like the work they do. These orgs should offer an option for no mailings at least for the sake of trees.
I just got Reel bamboo toilet paper from Target and really like it. It's soft and comes in a cardboard box so no plastic packaging! Check 'em out -> https://reelpaper.com/
I use dryer balls, too. My understanding is that dryer sheets are incredibly toxic. And Joan, check out Who Gives a Crap TP. It's 100% recycled and comes in all paper packaging. It's a wonderful company that donates a lot of their proceeds to building toilets in developing companies.
Dryer sheets not only ruin the pile on your towels and clothes, but it's like rubbing cancer on the largest organ on your body. They are awful full stop. No idea how the EPA ever allowed those.
sorry if I confused people. I was talking about laundry sheets in my comment above, not dryer sheets. I also use the wool dryer balls...they work great! I hope the laundry sheets work well for washing clothes.
The link to a shareable link in this excellent post does not seem to be shareable. It puts you in a frustrating loop. I tried to send it to a group of people and it leads to a link to the Notion app.
This, and the previous link, DO work. It looks like it doesn’t, but I emailed it to myself first and found that it looks like it’s just going back to the notion site, but includes the whole article. I shared it on Facebook.
If people want to get involved, I urge them to join Citizens Climate Lobby. We're non-partisan, building relationships with whoever is in office, asking questions to seek common ground on climate change, advocating a federal price on carbon with all net revenue returned to the people in equal monthly shares. We build and demonstrate political will with public outreach events, publications and interviews in the media, and endorsements from business and thought leaders, and we go to Congress and lobby our representatives and their staff.
One of the things we can do to help voters prioritize this issue, is to unify all the environmental groups, work together, not in competition, pool resources. It does not mean losing your organization.
For example, in Florida, there literally are 5 organizations that follow state legislation and send pleas to their members to call, write or email legislators. Why in the world can't they share the work to put the spreadsheet together? Then go out to their membership.
We should ALL be looking for good candidates to run for office at all levels of government. It is up to my political party to take it from there, to help the candidate get elected.
My biggest beef with us progressives is that we do not coordinate. It hurts our ability to get things done.
Jun 8, 2023·edited Jun 8, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
I've been reading your daily newsletter for several years, (THANK YOU ROBERT) and have not commented before now. Your call for comments on the climate emergency made me realize I had something pragmatic to offer on this topic. My husband and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. We own a small home and generally don't use a whole lot of fossil fuels. We don't have kids of our own, although do have a large family in the area. As we near retirement age we had to decide if we wanted to stay in the Bay Area, which as most people know is expensive and has lots of big city problems. Still, we grew up here and so we decided to stay. We also decided that it was time to put our money where our beliefs are so we invested in rooftop solar. Several of our neighbors had added leased solar panels to their roofs in the past decade but because we use so little power it seemed overly expensive for us to do it. After multiple power outages, and terrible wildfires in the past several years, we decided to go ahead and invest anyway. We had to take out a new mortgage, (making sure we could pay the low monthly rate while in retirement) and a line of credit, and invested it all into 20 solar panels, a 13kWh battery, and an upgraded subpanel. We were lucky to get in before the California Public Utilities Commission lowered the amount of money a home like ours gets for producing clean power and selling it to the grid (Net Metering or NEM.) Although my spouse lost his job the very day we got the bill for this expensive system, we haven't regretted it for a minute! When tax time came we received back 30% of the money we spent. Every month we now pay only $12 for all our electrical, (instead of the $80-$150 we used to pay.) Each year we get about $400 cash back for the clean energy we sell back to the power company, and every evening, when the sun goes down, we use our own power saved in our battery. We own our system outright so have no loan payments on it. This project is something that cost us money from our retirement funds but it also helps ensure there will be a future for us to retire in. Each day our system reports to us on the company app how much energy we have generated, how much carbon we have offset, and how many trees we have saved. Since our system went online in July 2022 we have generated the following: 9,550 kWh, the estimated cost savings is $609 USD, We've avoided creating 7 tons of C02, We have saved the equivalent of 113 trees, We have "not driven" almost 17,000 miles, and have not used 760 gallons of fuel. Aside from all this good stuff, the very best is how wonderful it makes us feel to have done something tangible to make our own weight on the planet much lighter. I hope our experience inspires others to invest personally in direct action to reverse pollution and environmental degradation. Wherever you live, there are ways to clean up your own trail. There truly is no more urgent investment for all of us!
How I wish I could do the same! Having a huge, 150-200 year old Northern Red Oak that completely shades my roof make it impossible, though. On the positive side, that tree does many wonderful things, including cutting down on my air conditioning bill!
That tree also absorbs carbon and it very important to wildlife! According to best selling author Dr. Doug Tallamy, oaks support over 500 species of insects. Those insects are necessary for feeding birds and other wildlife. He says a single clutch of chickadees eats 6K-9K caterpillars before they leave the nest. The acorns also provide important food for animals. That oak tree is a blessing. If you can, plant another red oak so there is a replacement waiting when this one gets too old.
In addition to joining groups to address climate change, my husband and I take individual steps--small those these are--and hope to encourage our friends and family to do the same: take fewer, shorter showers; buy local and organic fruit and veggies; use the appliances--washer, dryer, dishwasher--as infrequently as possible; got rid of our lawn and planted native, drought tolerant plants; compost food waste and use it on the plants; wear sweaters when we're cold and keep the thermostat at 67 degrees in the daytime, 60 at night; use cloth, reusable bags when shopping; recycle as much as possible, including clothes--and I'm sure many of you can add some other steps to this list. Barbara
Thanks, Barbara, for these good common sense steps to take.
Our front walkway is made from pavers. Weeds are always poking through. (not all weeds are bad, just when they're in the wrong place!) I use this "Weed Be Gone" recipe to keep them at bay. 1/3 gallon of vinegar, 3 cups of Epsom Salt, 1/4 cup of Dawn. Mix well. Pour into a spray bottle. I hand pick out the larger "weeds," then spray the cracks with the mixture. It works!
Lynell, thanks. I use vinegar with orange oil (in place of Dawn) and it totally works. You can use food grade white vinegar or a more concentrated vinegar (20 or 30%, which I order) The orange oil is easy to get, because it’s used against ants in the house. It’s added because it helps the vinegar stick to the foliage. I use a recycled spray bottle, and then I bought a pressure pump sprayer from a beauty supply place, and it is super speedy!
Lynell, I agree that the recipe you mentioned for weeds does work! I keep a reusable bottle at the ready so I am not tempted to just pick up a bottle of ready made weed killer at the hardware store.
We do these too, Barbara - shorter showers. Not every day. We don't use heat in the winter - keep it near 50 and wear layers. Also use cloth bags for shopping. ❤️
Be careful with cloth bags. Consumer Reports says that, unless one takes care, they can become sources of infection. CR says they should be washed thoroughly and often.
"got rid of our lawn and planted native, drought tolerant plants"--YAY!! Good for you! This is something that I advocate on our local online neighborhood group that I started: "No Mow Turf Grass Alternatives". If you have a sunny yard, or at least a sunny portion, I encourage you to join the "Food Not Lawns" movement and put in a vegetable garden. Mine is small, but I get enough produce to share with the neighborhood!
If you're a homeowner and can afford a remodel, the #1 thing you can do is electrify your appliances. This directly cuts out your use of fossil fuels at home (plus it's healthier for you and your family).
The Inflation Reduction Act provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. See how much you can save with Rewiring America's calculator: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
Get EVERYONE involved! Start with parents guiding children to get involved. Teach them simple things like the conservation lesson that turning off the faucet for the 2 minutes it takes, morning and night, to brush their teeth saves roughly 1,460 gallons per year of good clean drinking water. Enough to fill 26 55-gallon drums that won't need to consume electricity to be pumped and disposed of.
Then the parents and the children are involved starting with a very simple conservation activity, something little ol' me can do to help reverse climate change. They, both parent and child, start to notice similar opportunities, the leaking toilet, the lawn sprinkler that could have been used to water food production. On and on. Friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors, politicians – both young and old – start realizing they all have a role in the environmental challenge. When my enlightened grandchildren ask: "Grampa, what are you doing about climate change?", I have a very long and expanding list which includes my active role in my county government's Climate Action Committee!
Oh, by the way, what are YOU doing about climate change?
We also take individual steps in our house: buckets in the shower, using the water gathered while the right temperature is reached to water plants, “Navy showers,” buying as few products packaged in plastic as possible, putting parings and kitchen scraps in our Los Angeles green cans, recycling, supporting environmentally responsive companies (i.e. Patagonia), and cutting down on using power. Thank you all for all that you do!
Good list. I’m a ceramic artist and sell on Etsy. Etsy just had a community discussion about packaging and there were lots of great ideas about packing work for shipping more sustainably. I was delighted to learn how many of us recycle shipping supplies in our own packing. For most of us, if something comes in the door (boxes,mailers, etc.) it’s often repurposed into artwork or shipping supplies.
Thanks for opening up your comments. I’ve been very concerned about the climate crisis for 20 years. When my kids hit high school, I realized I needed a new focus so I went back to college. My goal was to learn as much about the Earth as possible in order to advocate for Her. Working for the student newspaper, I was able to meet Al Gore and he inspired a commitment to DO SOMETHING.
Nature restoration projects, personal habit alterations, and advocacy later, I’m dismayed at the lack of progress on national policy to mitigate this impending apocalypse. As with gun control legislation, climate friendly legislation gets shafted.
Finding Third Act, an org started by Bill McKibben and others, was a game changer for me. Knowing that I can make a difference in my golden years helps weather the anxiety around climate chaos.
The Inflation Reduction Act was one of the rare climate friendly pieces of legislation to pass recently. It provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. Rewiring America (another excellent organization), put together a calculator to see how much you can save by electrifying: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
I just wrote about solar. I recommend https://www.amicussolar.com/our-member-owners/ to find out contractors in your state. They will travel pretty far for a project, so don't hesitate to contact them even if they're not right near your residence.
Great thing about solar is: it just sits there on your roof generating renewable electricity. You don't have to do anything, though we twice have had to replace our under-warranty invertor.
One of the tasks many of us have taken on is to recycle as much of our throwaway stuff as possible, especially plastics. I have been involved in the plastics issue since seeing the film “Bag It” at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride, CO at least 10 years ago.
Over the years, in addition to reducing my use of plastic bags and especially avoiding single use plastic bags which often end up in the oceans harming sea life, I have tried hard to recycle as many unavoidable plastic products as possible…food containers, product containers, etc.
Unfortunately, the plastics industry has tried to portray itself as environmentally conscious by assigning numbers to many plastic products that are not really recyclable, or will never end up getting recycled, fooling people into thinking they are not harming the environment by consuming the products inside and then discarding the containers.
I recently heard a good piece on NPR about recycling that revealed the sad truth that even the process of recycling itself releases dangerous toxins into the environment. So what is an environmentally conscious person to do, the interviewer asked the scientist on the program. Essentially, products that have a number 1 or number 2 on them can be recycled relatively safely and frequently are actually recycled. However, products with higher numbers are not really safe to recycle, and the process of recycling them itself creates more toxins than it is worth.
So our only alternative is to put pressure on companies to use less plastic!!! And to use less plastic ourselves whenever possible. I recently bought some storage bags and some wrappers for food made out of beeswax…they’re a bit awkward to use, but in some situations they can work.
The plastics conundrum is extremely difficult and challenging. Other than writing to companies about how the wrap their products or how they waste plastic in packaging their products, and looking for products in other kinds of containers, it’s tough to find a workable solution!
I’m open to new ideas, but I do recommend NOT putting anything in your recycling container that has a number higher than a 1 or a 2 on it!
Unfortunately, now it seems that produce in larger grocery stores are being packaged in a plastic container of some sort, and of course, at a higher price. It is the oil industry trying to find another way to make a profit. I try to avoid this when possible but it is frustrating to see this unnecessary use of plastic!
All grocery stores (not just large ones) carry an increasing number of food items in plastic of one sort or the other. Trying to find alternatives is almost impossible, making environmental-sensitive choices unrealistic. Farmers markets are good for fruits and vegetables, but we are still faced with plastics of one sort or the other for items that used to come in glass, metal, paper, or were unpackaged.
Also recommend beyondplastics.org where I noticed plastics will be the equivalent of polluting "coal" by 2030. There was a good letter to the editor yesterday in the New York Times with reference to plastic waste in oceans....If the bathtub is overflowing, do we get a mop or shut off the water?
Nancy, you are completely correct that anything beyond #1 or #2 is really not recycleable! I highly recommend the movie The Story of Plastic, which is free if you can organize a group watch. Judith Enck from Beyond Plastic.org moderated a discussion that we held. I also recommend people write to their grocery store and consumer goods manufacturers about their concerns around the shift towards plastic. I avoid any beverages in plastic, ditto liquid soap. There are alternatives for many products that are not in plastic. And lets all complain about the plastic in the produce section! We quickly learned that covid was in the air, yet everything went into shrinkwrap and everyone still uses disposable wipes to "sanitize" everything. We can also easily avoid most paper towel/napkin usage. Did you know that Americans use 51,000 trees daily just for paper towels?! How nuts is that?!
Unfortunately even those labeled 1 or 2 have various additives to change their flexibility, add color, etc., which makes degrades the quality of any recycled products.
Also, it thoroughly annoys me that fruits and vegetables such as apples and carrots are sold packed in plastic bags. It's so unnecessary as it is easy to bring your own bags.
That's exactly right. When Tide makes their detergent bottle Tide orange, what other product can use melted plastic in that color? It's the same issue with all colors of plastic. It's also increasingly difficult to find powdered detergent, which is more economical. Laundry sheets are another option.
Just saw your comment after posting mine. I couldn't agree more. "What SHE said." New Yorkers should check out BeyondPlastics.com. Also, a company called Bites for toothpaste tablets that come in a glass jar instead of plastic tube and Blue Land for laundry and household products that come in aluminum containers. Refills for both companies arrive in the mail in compostable paper packaging. (Which is worse: shipping or plastic???)
The problem is since China is no longer taking our recycling, it's anyone's guess if things are actually being recycled. Yes, we put things at the curb, but don't REALLY have any idea where it ends up. From what I'm seeing poor countries have rivers overflowing with "recycling."
The major way to deal with climate change is to Vote ALL climate deniers OUT of office and not let any new ones in. That translates into don't vote for any Republicans and make sure every race is contested so a climate deniers doesn't win the election by default. When people say we can't afford climate change measures one should point out that the cost of not dealing with climate change now is orders of magnitude more expensive.
As I watched the Big Apple glow orange and listened to (favorite) MSNBC commentators complain about lack of breath, weepy eyes and closed airports, I thought of the old adage: “As goes California so goes the Nation.”
Not to mention the Pacific Northwest. We've been having these days for umpty years, from CA, Oregon, Canada, and home grown in WA. Glad to see this is getting national attention now.
I think it is partially "Oh how awful for them, glad it isn't me!"...but a lot of the "power people" in NY and DC are now affected, so it has gotten more attention. It is now affecting us in the East Coast, so now it matters more?! I hope this time it gives people more food for thought about how connected we all are in reality.
If you want to help, put solar panels on your roof and buy an electric car. Both may not make the most financial sense for you personally but shifting away from fossil fuels has a cost which it is our responsibility to bear since our profligate use of cheap energy has gotten us into this situation. Some will point out that most electricity comes from coal and methane fired power plants but greater demand is encouraging development of green generation and, yes, it’s more expensive but, again, we made this mess. We need to pay to fix it.
Another thing that will help kick the fossil fuel habit is home electrification. If you're a homeowner and can afford a remodel, the #1 thing you can do is electrify your appliances. This directly cuts out your use of fossil fuels at home (plus it's healthier for you and your family).
The Inflation Reduction Act provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. See how much you can save with Rewiring America's calculator: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
Some of the materials for EVs come from mines that pollute the planet. "they' want to put a mine in a pristine area of the Montana/Idaho border....potential for arsenic poisoning among other things.
Fair disclosure: My next vehicle will probably be a hybrid or an EV. However, my Honda SUV has over 100,000 miles. It will probably go at least another 100K or so. No need to mine Mother Earth for me a while.
David, thanks for sharing that wonderful article. I've been reading Cobalt Red, which is a horrific account of cobalt extraction in the DRC (Congo). Washington Post also had a very concerning article about nickel extraction in Indonesia. That article suggests that perhaps innovation might relieve some of the pressure on these rare earths and the environmental and human toll in the extraction sooner than expected.
I've been driving my Toyota hybrid for 17 years and it's almost ready to hit 200K miles on the original hybrid battery. Keeping a vehicle operational longer is also good for the environment, especially if you don't put on a lot of miles. There is a whole lot of waste in the creation of that car. I hope that when I'm ready to buy my EV we will be moving away from rare earth materials for batteries.
Get EVERYONE involved! Start with parents guiding children to get involved. Teach them simple things like the conservation lesson that turning off the faucet for the 2 minutes it takes, morning and night, to brush their teeth saves roughly 1,460 gallons per year of good clean drinking water. Enough to fill 26 55-gallon drums that won't need to consume electricity to be pumped and disposed of.
Then the parents and the children are involved starting with a very simple conservation activity, something little ol' me can do to help reverse climate change. They, both parent and child, start to notice similar opportunities, the leaking toilet, the lawn sprinkler that could have been used to water food production. On and on. Friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors, politicians – both young and old – start realizing they all have a role in the environmental challenge. When my enlightened grandchildren ask: "Grampa, what are you doing about climate change?", I have a very long and expanding list which includes my active role in my county government's Climate Action Committee!
Oh, by the way, what are YOU doing about climate change?
I believe that other parts of the world are ahead of much of American regarding steps that can be taken. Where we live, there are neighborhood bins for paper/cardboard, glass, metal plastic, compost. Also, there are many small shops that offer local fruits and vegetables which are within walking distance of the home. We chose not buy a car and to walk everywhere because it is possible - unlike most of CA (although I walked everywhere near my home in Santa Monica) and large metropolises.
I often think about how much better it would be if people could work close to home rather than the hour or longer drive to and from work in many cities, and think that one thing the pandemic did for many was the opportunity to work remotely from home. It would be wonderful if this could continue.
Something everyone could do if they truly wanted to would be to boycott the products sold by the major corporations. Sadly, there are American products sold here (Scott brand, Johnson & Johnson, etc.) We buy products made here in Spain even though the quality might not be as good because we want to support Spain's economy as well as local. Buying bread from the bakery and bringing it home with no wrapper is something else we do rather than buying the super market choices like Orowheat or other companies that have bulldozed their way into markets outside of the U.S.. To get corporations to change, it takes being committed to being uncomfortable with 'the American lifestyle'. One corporation now owns all of the grocery store chains in the U.S.. This means that one corporation can determine what you will pay for your food. Buy local and fresh as much as possible.
Carpool. When we would need to drive down to San Diego, the carpool lanes were mostly only two people in the car.
The only way to truly make a difference is to take measures that squeeze the pocket books of the corporate kings. The final episode of Succession spells this out.
I agree completely. I have lived in several countries and this has been the case. There was often a socially embedded ethical imperative to act for the good of one’s regional environment. Recycling was like a second language when I moved to Germany many years ago; I was utterly baffled by its complexity until it was patiently explained to me. In Asia, wearing masks was a public health prophylactic, voluntarily observed for the good of the society. Etc.
Antigua, an island in the West Indies and my husband's country of origin, banned plastics a few years ago after seeing the negative effects of discarded plastic bags littering their beaches. I remember visiting in the early eighties before plastic became a thing. Customers brought their own means of transporting their groceries home. No big deal then. Once plastic took over the island, it took about 30+ years before seeing the ill effects of plastic.
Also, houses are now being built with solar panels installed as a standard feature. So cool!
One of my thoughts is that so many countries have had wars fought on their soil. The communities are close together making it important to respect one another. The idea of 'individual rights' as an American belief - especially in Texas - doesn't play in other cultures. If everyone still wore masks when they were sick, fewer would get the flu. Even here in Spain, masks are no longer required on buses. It is tourist season, and there are many coughing and sneezing in the streets.
Gallery, I think you are correct. We have a love of the American lifestyle that impedes many changes that could be made. One in particular is the automobile which has gotten bigger (trucks are crazy big). The sacrifices that people made during war (WW II or during the depression) times are the kind of measures we need to take because fighting the climate crises are equivalent but not fully appreciated. Thanks for sharing.
Get EVERYONE involved! Start with parents guiding children to get involved. Teach them simple things like the conservation lesson that turning off the faucet for the 2 minutes it takes, morning and night, to brush their teeth saves roughly 1,460 gallons per year of good clean drinking water. Enough to fill 26 55-gallon drums that won't need to consume electricity to be pumped and disposed of.
Then the parents and the children are involved starting with a very simple conservation activity, something little ol' me can do to help reverse climate change. They, both parent and child, start to notice similar opportunities, the leaking toilet, the lawn sprinkler that could have been used to water food production. On and on. Friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors, politicians – both young and old – start realizing they all have a role in the environmental challenge. When my enlightened grandchildren ask: "Grampa, what are you doing about climate change?", I have a very long and expanding list which includes my active role in my county government's Climate Action Committee!
Oh, by the way, what are YOU doing about climate change?
Hopefully you are doing all you can, Jim. How are you successfully encouraging parents to get their children involved? More than what I had posted here - which you seem not to have read, I was instrumental in getting our neighborhood to recycle. I personally would take the accumulated materials to the recycling center. When our daughter was 8, my husband took her to the bank he was on the board of. She told the president of the bank that they needed to stop using Styrofoam cups. They did. Who are you getting involved. What are YOU doing?
Thanks for the reply. I'm 78 with a bit of Long COVID. My wife and I live in designed and had built 20 years ago. With the influence of climate change, much about our nome would be different. Knowing the house will outlast us, we are still in the process of change regarding the house and much more. After I write this brief and incomplete list of "What are YOU doing?", I will try to get and maintain a complete list. YOU too?
1. Stopped eating meat.
2. Don't water, fertilize, or weed-kill the lawn.
3. Stopped mowing ⅔ of the lawn and mow the remainder only twice a month in season.
4. Bought a hybrid Prius and drive it at 54 MPG.
5. Put less than 1,000 miles per year on the 20 MPG 2009 Venza, oil change only 1/yr.
6. Installed 24 solar panels on south facing garage roofs.
7. Upgraded central AC from 12 SEER to 16 SEER last fall.
8. Stopped using 5 of the 8 natural gas boiler heating Zones.
9. Replaced 95% of incandescent bulbs with LED.
10. Insulated 6-inch studded attic storage space & added 1" foam board under sheetrock.
11. Super insulated over 4 rooms.
12. Super insulated under 3 radient heated floors.
13. Stopped letting the water run as I brush my teeth 4 minutes a day. :-)
Lots more done and lots more coming soon. I am going to complete this DONE list and add my GONNA DO SOON list. Where can we reach out and share? And define the benefits? And change building codes? And promote?
proud of you. As we have no car, rent an apartment in a 100 year old former mansion designed for a marquis, we've no need for AC (don't have it anyway) as the walls are thick cement and hold the cool in the summer but not so great in the winter when we layer clothing and keep the heat off. I've a small balcony with pots of glorious flowers Spring, Summer, Fall. Also brush teeth with no water until time to rinse.
I also recommend The Climate Action Handbook, A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions for Everyone, from Sasquatch Books. Lots of stuff you can do right now to personally help.
And VOTE for the most climate-forward candidate you can.
Every choice we make, every action we take is woven with shiny ribbons and threads made from fossil fuels. The corporations who make those threads are fat and smug and determined to clutch their riches in their fists at any cost, even if it means the death of life as we know it on this planet.
They don't want you to consider that every flight we take to Paris, outsized home we build, steak we eat, dress from Target we buy, outsized lawn we mow with a gas mower contributes to the ruin of our home, this planet. Nor is it easy for us to rewire our brains to consider the cost to the planet of all of our daily activities and make different choices. It's gobsmacking! But it's possible and once we start unraveling those fossil fuel threads on a daily basis (in my experience) by eating more plants, installing heat pumps, buying repurposed clothes, reducing the size of the lawn, biking more, buying less stuff, even giving up a second home if one is fortunate enough to have one-it is possible to begin to have a sense of agency over this crisis. This sense of agency is not accompanied by feelings of deprivation, but rather by a deep sense of living in harmony with the needs of our planet and of living a "right life." Whenever did a new pair of shoes really bring happiness?
We are in a fight for our lives and we can't do this alone: find neighbors and family to join in this unravelling of the old way of life and reweaving of a new one. Here in Freeport, Maine, last week, we held a plant-based community supper in an old barn with twinkly lights hung from the ceiling and Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill" playing in the background. Fifty or so neighbors came together to share plant-based recipes and show our love for this place and at the same time support our behavior change choices. We had a wonderful time. Nobody missed a blood-red steak.
Then join Third Act, Bill McKibben's organization for folks over 60 like me. Third Act is hitting the BIG BAD BANKS in their pockets and organizing all over the country. Or join the Sierra Club or form your own local community grass roots organization. Life will be richer and more joyful if you start pulling apart all those fossil fuel weavings and tossing them into the fire.
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Planting trees.
The pines in the Sierras have been dying due to climate change, I've collected acorns with children. Some seeds we planted directly in the ground. Others were nurtured in a small nursery and planted out. Many people have been engaged in this effort.
But when done poorly, the projects can worsen the very problems they were meant to solve. Planting the wrong trees in the wrong place can actually reduce biodiversity, speeding extinctions and making ecosystems far less resilient.
Amid that worsening crisis, companies and countries are increasingly investing in tree planting that carpets large areas with commercial, nonnative species in the name of fighting climate change. These trees sock away carbon but provide little support to the webs of life that once thrived in those areas.
“You’re creating basically a sterile landscape,” said Paul Smith, who runs Botanic Gardens Conservation International, an umbrella group that works to prevent plant extinctions. “If people want to plant trees, let’s also make it a positive for biodiversity.”
There’s a rule of thumb in the tree planting world: One should plant “the right tree in the right place.” Some add, “for the right reason.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/climate/tree-planting-reforestation-climate.html
Thank you Jan. It's vitally important that you are doing this with children!
What a great idea. Squirrels plant acorns in our yard all the time and I’d like to share the seedlings instead of pulling them out. Just clueless about how to distribute them.
Susan, in the spring there are frequently tree giveaways. Perhaps you could pot them up and offer them up. I keep, wash and reuse old plant containers. I'm working to reforest my garden which gets expensive. I hope you can let a few grow and find someone to use what you can't keep.
next door
good to know.
It just so happens I spent the afternoon putting together a resource doc of ways we can help. https://www.notion.so/I-want-to-do-more-on-CLIMATE-72a3416371ff426392512a69874adff8
Lol ! "It just so happens". Why am I so NOT surprised?!!! Jessica, you ROCK! Thank you so much for making things so easy for the rest of us to take action! I hope you realize how effective and important your contributions are.
That’s what I thought, too, lol! “Of course you did, resource woman extraordinaire!”
You’re very kind.
Man! You are just soooo awesome.
Subscribe to Jess Craven’s Substack so we can pass more climate-friendly legislation and elect climate-friendly legislators.
https://open.substack.com/pub/chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions/p/chop-wood-carry-water-67-730?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Very helpful! I learned extra soft toilet paper is responsible for deforestation. This was new info to me. I already hang my clothes, even though it’s a pain. In Europe, where I live, this is pretty common. Didn’t know big banks were bad, although in principle I guess I knew that. Composting in a big city is complicated. What happened to those worms that eat your garbage I heard about years ago? Thank you, Jessica, for beaming your light.
Well, it’s an online product. There’s a toilet paper company called give a crap that doesn’t take down the single tree.😉
WHO GIVES A CRAP T.P. & TISSUES —SIGN UP!
Terrific - I’ve been using this brand for a long time, irreverent & funny!!
Thank you I was appreciating the links everybody put in, but I didn’t do it. Thank you for providing it.
This brand was recently found to contain PFAS. Think about a bidet to reduce consumption. There are inexpensive bidet seats.
Their tp is made from bamboo and it’s great. My daughter got us started with this. I also order many household products from Grove, a very ecologically conscious company committed to becoming plastic free.
They offer both bamboo and recycled paper tp
And they donate some profits to build toilets in poorer countries. I'm happy to subscribe to their TP.
Who Gives a Crap yes! They are who I use!!
New to me!! Just placed an order..thanks all!!
Uses bamboo
Also, recycled paper TP. I love it- and zero plastic, each roll is (recycled ) paper wrap.
In my planned community, clothes lines are not permitted. However, there are portable/foldable laundry racks that you can place inside your home for drying clothes and linens, etc. Safe way to dry items while this smoke and haze crisis continues outside!
Yes, and actually I just found out yesterday but if you have seasonal allergies, it’s not a good idea to hang your clothes in the spring. I just realize that’s probably the reason my kid has been having such a hard time. I’m gonna have to start drying their sheets inside.
Not allowed to have outdoor clotheslines in Paris. Indoor racks proliferate. You get used to it.:-)
I have a small laundry rack. I still have to throw the quilts in a dryer, but that doesn't happen very often.
I saved a large plastic bag and throw it over the top of a door, and put a sheet on top to dry. I have 2 clothes racks and have put them together to put a quilt over to dry.
Vermicompost is easy, even in a big city. I just posted. Linda Parker
https://us.whogivesacrap.org/ this is what I use!
This brand was recently tested and includes PFAS, so you may want to look into another brand or consider a bidet seat to reduce TP use. Those of us in the environmental movement were not happy about this revelation.
I'm really happy with Everspring, 100% recycled TP from Target. grade "A".
Some cities have services that they will pick up your food and yard waste to compost it if you can't do it yourself. Also, a bidet is a suggestion to reduce toilet paper consumption. I recently discovered that some T.P. contains PFAS, so it's another concern added to loss of trees.
I had those worms a little over two decades ago. I would feed them to my turtle.
As for composting, I have a big yard and I just toss the fruit/veg waste outside the kitchen. When I lived in DC on a small plot, I buried the waste.
If you're a homeowner and can afford a remodel, the #1 thing you can do is electrify your appliances. This directly cuts out your use of fossil fuels at home (plus it's healthier for you and your family).
The Inflation Reduction Act provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. See how much you can save with Rewiring America's calculator: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
Ooh this may be a better link than the one I'd posted before. Thank you!
Jessica’s suggestions are spot on. I would add that the next time you find yourself in that special, peaceful natural area near where you live, sitting quietly, imagine that area despoiled, ravaged by the effects of climate change. If it is a wooded area, imagine it burned to the ground. A peaceful stream or lake or shore, imagine it polluted or altered to the point that it can no longer support a complex ecosystem. We are so inextricably linked to our world and this universe, far beyond what we can imagine. Our actions have consequences. Start at the individual level, and then get involved locally. It will not be easy, as the power of money is strong and unrelenting. Where I live, Chattanooga TN, is realizing enormous growth in construction of condominiums. For a community that once paraded itself as “the Boulder of the South”, where ideas like sustainability were important, it has drifted away from such laudable ideals. Politicians have seemingly lost vision as to what life could look like with sustainable approaches, and opted to feed from the trough of unsustainable development, where more is better. In this way of thinking, more is never enough, and thus the damaging cycle is never broken.
I recommend joining a local environmental group or creating one. There are people everywhere that care and politicians need to see a group of people that care. Write letters to the editor and show up and open meetings to voice your concerns. You can make a difference. I joined Sierra Club, but find your people.
There are several brands of toilet paper made from bamboo, sometimes also from sugarcane husks. Give those brands a try.
Yeah I think bamboo TP may be iffy. I love Who Gives a Crap but yes the Target Everspring is good too. 100% recycled paper is best. And a bidet attachment!
I love my bidet. One problem though is sometimes I have to use TP and it feels like bamboo. :-)
or 100% recycled paper, such as Everspring at Target. grade "A"
Jessica, this is really helpful. Thank you.
I’m so glad!
Such a great list, Jessica!!
People can also make pee rags out of soft rags and poop rags and wash them as we use to wash cloth diapers. If you have a compost heap, pee on it or pee into a container and put that on the compost. The minerals in our pee are great for the garden
I fertilize my plants with much diluted pee. Been doing that for--I think over a decade. Pure pee would kill 'em.
I was told that one can either dump their pee into a compost pile and let it "cure" for a couple of months, or dilute it with 15 parts of water per 1 part pee and use immediately on plants. It is a wonderful source of nitrogen!
I think the 1/15 is the ratio I read about after I first got the idea, and then googled.
I did not know that!! Wild!
Jessica, I had NO IDEA about my favorite soft squishy toilet paper...Charmin! Have I just buried my head in the sand? I have somehow missed that they were clear cutting boreal forests to give me soft toilet paper. I feel ashamed that I didn't know, and I will go from a grade F to a grade A when purchasing toilet paper to repent for my wasted opportunity to do better. Ironically, just the other day I ordered laundry sheets that dissolve and require not plastic bottle. We can all make baby steps...Thank you so much for your list!
Follow National Resources Defence Council (and donate!). I've known about Charmin for a long time thanks to them.
I would be happy to donate to them if they are not like SO many charities that when you donate, they turn right around and ask for another donation. I feel like my donation goes towards them printing another mailer to ask me for more money. Will RDC use my money for action rather than asking me for more money immediately? Or, is there a way to make a "one time donation"? Then I can choose when to donate to them again? Same thing with politicians...donate so they can ask for more! Ugh. It makes me not want to donate to any of them. I just want them to put my money to work towards the cause itself. I don't mean to sound cynical. It just feels like I get inundated sometimes...
More than annoying. Makes me stop donating. SPLC is the worst at sending out loads of mailers and I very much like the work they do. These orgs should offer an option for no mailings at least for the sake of trees.
Yes, it's annoying.
Yeah, me too. I agree.
I just got Reel bamboo toilet paper from Target and really like it. It's soft and comes in a cardboard box so no plastic packaging! Check 'em out -> https://reelpaper.com/
I switched from dryer sheets to wool dryer balls awhile ago. Think they work just as well.
I use dryer balls, too. My understanding is that dryer sheets are incredibly toxic. And Joan, check out Who Gives a Crap TP. It's 100% recycled and comes in all paper packaging. It's a wonderful company that donates a lot of their proceeds to building toilets in developing companies.
Dryer sheets not only ruin the pile on your towels and clothes, but it's like rubbing cancer on the largest organ on your body. They are awful full stop. No idea how the EPA ever allowed those.
sorry if I confused people. I was talking about laundry sheets in my comment above, not dryer sheets. I also use the wool dryer balls...they work great! I hope the laundry sheets work well for washing clothes.
Without the nasty chemicals!
Excellent info, thank you for your time and effort.
Jessica you are a force of nature. Thank you!
Yes, thank-you so much for this.I have just down-loaded Climate Action Now and have joined Third Act. Wow!
AMAZING! Third Act is phenomenal and so is the app. Best of you personalize the letters a bit, but even with that it takes no time at all.
THANK YOU. PRINTING OUT AND PUTTING ON THE FRIDGE!
YAY!
As always, thank you, Jessica. Your action lists regularly make our daily "to-do" lists. This one will stay at the top.
The link to a shareable link in this excellent post does not seem to be shareable. It puts you in a frustrating loop. I tried to send it to a group of people and it leads to a link to the Notion app.
Same…
Try https://tinyurl.com/climatelist
This, and the previous link, DO work. It looks like it doesn’t, but I emailed it to myself first and found that it looks like it’s just going back to the notion site, but includes the whole article. I shared it on Facebook.
Thanks, got it to work this time!
Can you just send your friends https://tinyurl.com/climatelist ?
Thanks so much, Jess! This is a wonderful, succinct guide. I'll share it widely.
Amazing thanks.
Jessica, you are truly an amazing inspiration and adept resource for us all. Thank you so much!
Thank you!
If people want to get involved, I urge them to join Citizens Climate Lobby. We're non-partisan, building relationships with whoever is in office, asking questions to seek common ground on climate change, advocating a federal price on carbon with all net revenue returned to the people in equal monthly shares. We build and demonstrate political will with public outreach events, publications and interviews in the media, and endorsements from business and thought leaders, and we go to Congress and lobby our representatives and their staff.
Making it easy...
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
One of the things we can do to help voters prioritize this issue, is to unify all the environmental groups, work together, not in competition, pool resources. It does not mean losing your organization.
For example, in Florida, there literally are 5 organizations that follow state legislation and send pleas to their members to call, write or email legislators. Why in the world can't they share the work to put the spreadsheet together? Then go out to their membership.
We should ALL be looking for good candidates to run for office at all levels of government. It is up to my political party to take it from there, to help the candidate get elected.
My biggest beef with us progressives is that we do not coordinate. It hurts our ability to get things done.
Agreed 😊
Thank you for the reference. I do everything I can on an individual level, but that’s clearly just not enough anymore
This article in VOX was encouraging...https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2023/6/7/23743640/plastic-pollution-un-treaty-oceans-waste
I'm a recent member of CCL. Such a great resource and a fairly simple way to get involved.
Hear, hear, for addressing the climate crisis! Here are 4 favorite organizations:
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ (See comment herein by Steven Ghan, who's in the thick of it.)
https://ballotpedia.org/Sierra_Club
https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/
https://350.org/bill/ (Bill McKibben)
And another of Bill’s efforts:
https://thirdact.org/about/who-we-are/
Amplify Ellie Kona's list
I've been reading your daily newsletter for several years, (THANK YOU ROBERT) and have not commented before now. Your call for comments on the climate emergency made me realize I had something pragmatic to offer on this topic. My husband and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. We own a small home and generally don't use a whole lot of fossil fuels. We don't have kids of our own, although do have a large family in the area. As we near retirement age we had to decide if we wanted to stay in the Bay Area, which as most people know is expensive and has lots of big city problems. Still, we grew up here and so we decided to stay. We also decided that it was time to put our money where our beliefs are so we invested in rooftop solar. Several of our neighbors had added leased solar panels to their roofs in the past decade but because we use so little power it seemed overly expensive for us to do it. After multiple power outages, and terrible wildfires in the past several years, we decided to go ahead and invest anyway. We had to take out a new mortgage, (making sure we could pay the low monthly rate while in retirement) and a line of credit, and invested it all into 20 solar panels, a 13kWh battery, and an upgraded subpanel. We were lucky to get in before the California Public Utilities Commission lowered the amount of money a home like ours gets for producing clean power and selling it to the grid (Net Metering or NEM.) Although my spouse lost his job the very day we got the bill for this expensive system, we haven't regretted it for a minute! When tax time came we received back 30% of the money we spent. Every month we now pay only $12 for all our electrical, (instead of the $80-$150 we used to pay.) Each year we get about $400 cash back for the clean energy we sell back to the power company, and every evening, when the sun goes down, we use our own power saved in our battery. We own our system outright so have no loan payments on it. This project is something that cost us money from our retirement funds but it also helps ensure there will be a future for us to retire in. Each day our system reports to us on the company app how much energy we have generated, how much carbon we have offset, and how many trees we have saved. Since our system went online in July 2022 we have generated the following: 9,550 kWh, the estimated cost savings is $609 USD, We've avoided creating 7 tons of C02, We have saved the equivalent of 113 trees, We have "not driven" almost 17,000 miles, and have not used 760 gallons of fuel. Aside from all this good stuff, the very best is how wonderful it makes us feel to have done something tangible to make our own weight on the planet much lighter. I hope our experience inspires others to invest personally in direct action to reverse pollution and environmental degradation. Wherever you live, there are ways to clean up your own trail. There truly is no more urgent investment for all of us!
Our son just invested in solar roof panels (a millennial). He prioritized the climate over other choices ... there's hope!!
How I wish I could do the same! Having a huge, 150-200 year old Northern Red Oak that completely shades my roof make it impossible, though. On the positive side, that tree does many wonderful things, including cutting down on my air conditioning bill!
That tree also absorbs carbon and it very important to wildlife! According to best selling author Dr. Doug Tallamy, oaks support over 500 species of insects. Those insects are necessary for feeding birds and other wildlife. He says a single clutch of chickadees eats 6K-9K caterpillars before they leave the nest. The acorns also provide important food for animals. That oak tree is a blessing. If you can, plant another red oak so there is a replacement waiting when this one gets too old.
Thank you. Your example motivates and encourages me.
Thank you for this. Very helpful!
In addition to joining groups to address climate change, my husband and I take individual steps--small those these are--and hope to encourage our friends and family to do the same: take fewer, shorter showers; buy local and organic fruit and veggies; use the appliances--washer, dryer, dishwasher--as infrequently as possible; got rid of our lawn and planted native, drought tolerant plants; compost food waste and use it on the plants; wear sweaters when we're cold and keep the thermostat at 67 degrees in the daytime, 60 at night; use cloth, reusable bags when shopping; recycle as much as possible, including clothes--and I'm sure many of you can add some other steps to this list. Barbara
Thanks, Barbara, for these good common sense steps to take.
Our front walkway is made from pavers. Weeds are always poking through. (not all weeds are bad, just when they're in the wrong place!) I use this "Weed Be Gone" recipe to keep them at bay. 1/3 gallon of vinegar, 3 cups of Epsom Salt, 1/4 cup of Dawn. Mix well. Pour into a spray bottle. I hand pick out the larger "weeds," then spray the cracks with the mixture. It works!
Lynell, thanks. I use vinegar with orange oil (in place of Dawn) and it totally works. You can use food grade white vinegar or a more concentrated vinegar (20 or 30%, which I order) The orange oil is easy to get, because it’s used against ants in the house. It’s added because it helps the vinegar stick to the foliage. I use a recycled spray bottle, and then I bought a pressure pump sprayer from a beauty supply place, and it is super speedy!
Wow, thank you for this, Deborah! Will look into the orange oil, for sure.
Lynell, I agree that the recipe you mentioned for weeds does work! I keep a reusable bottle at the ready so I am not tempted to just pick up a bottle of ready made weed killer at the hardware store.
Thanks, Joan, for this confirmation. And thanks for the tip to have a spare at the ready!
Thanks Lynell, I was looking for an effective alternative to commercial defoliants.
I associate any commercial weed killer to be a version of Agent Orange that is still killing Vietnam Vets and the people of Vietnam.
Pretty much, although I don't know that 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D are even still in commercial use. The concept remains the same.
Glad that this was helpful, Dave.
We do these too, Barbara - shorter showers. Not every day. We don't use heat in the winter - keep it near 50 and wear layers. Also use cloth bags for shopping. ❤️
Now if we can only get a 100 million other people to do the same thing.
Be careful with cloth bags. Consumer Reports says that, unless one takes care, they can become sources of infection. CR says they should be washed thoroughly and often.
Good post. Absolutely!
"got rid of our lawn and planted native, drought tolerant plants"--YAY!! Good for you! This is something that I advocate on our local online neighborhood group that I started: "No Mow Turf Grass Alternatives". If you have a sunny yard, or at least a sunny portion, I encourage you to join the "Food Not Lawns" movement and put in a vegetable garden. Mine is small, but I get enough produce to share with the neighborhood!
If you're a homeowner and can afford a remodel, the #1 thing you can do is electrify your appliances. This directly cuts out your use of fossil fuels at home (plus it's healthier for you and your family).
The Inflation Reduction Act provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. See how much you can save with Rewiring America's calculator: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
Get EVERYONE involved! Start with parents guiding children to get involved. Teach them simple things like the conservation lesson that turning off the faucet for the 2 minutes it takes, morning and night, to brush their teeth saves roughly 1,460 gallons per year of good clean drinking water. Enough to fill 26 55-gallon drums that won't need to consume electricity to be pumped and disposed of.
Then the parents and the children are involved starting with a very simple conservation activity, something little ol' me can do to help reverse climate change. They, both parent and child, start to notice similar opportunities, the leaking toilet, the lawn sprinkler that could have been used to water food production. On and on. Friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors, politicians – both young and old – start realizing they all have a role in the environmental challenge. When my enlightened grandchildren ask: "Grampa, what are you doing about climate change?", I have a very long and expanding list which includes my active role in my county government's Climate Action Committee!
Oh, by the way, what are YOU doing about climate change?
a clothes line
We also take individual steps in our house: buckets in the shower, using the water gathered while the right temperature is reached to water plants, “Navy showers,” buying as few products packaged in plastic as possible, putting parings and kitchen scraps in our Los Angeles green cans, recycling, supporting environmentally responsive companies (i.e. Patagonia), and cutting down on using power. Thank you all for all that you do!
Good list. I’m a ceramic artist and sell on Etsy. Etsy just had a community discussion about packaging and there were lots of great ideas about packing work for shipping more sustainably. I was delighted to learn how many of us recycle shipping supplies in our own packing. For most of us, if something comes in the door (boxes,mailers, etc.) it’s often repurposed into artwork or shipping supplies.
Thanks for opening up your comments. I’ve been very concerned about the climate crisis for 20 years. When my kids hit high school, I realized I needed a new focus so I went back to college. My goal was to learn as much about the Earth as possible in order to advocate for Her. Working for the student newspaper, I was able to meet Al Gore and he inspired a commitment to DO SOMETHING.
Nature restoration projects, personal habit alterations, and advocacy later, I’m dismayed at the lack of progress on national policy to mitigate this impending apocalypse. As with gun control legislation, climate friendly legislation gets shafted.
Finding Third Act, an org started by Bill McKibben and others, was a game changer for me. Knowing that I can make a difference in my golden years helps weather the anxiety around climate chaos.
https://thirdact.org/about/who-we-are/
The Inflation Reduction Act was one of the rare climate friendly pieces of legislation to pass recently. It provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. Rewiring America (another excellent organization), put together a calculator to see how much you can save by electrifying: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
I highly recommend reading this book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-field-guide-to-climate-anxiety-how-to-keep-your-cool-on-a-warming-planet-sarah-jaquette-ray/13155799. It focuses on the emotional and interpersonal skills we can build to help us face the climate crisis together. It left me feeling hopeful and focused.
I just wrote about solar. I recommend https://www.amicussolar.com/our-member-owners/ to find out contractors in your state. They will travel pretty far for a project, so don't hesitate to contact them even if they're not right near your residence.
Great thing about solar is: it just sits there on your roof generating renewable electricity. You don't have to do anything, though we twice have had to replace our under-warranty invertor.
Thanks, I’ll definitely check this out. I’ll take hope anywhere I can find it these days!
One of the tasks many of us have taken on is to recycle as much of our throwaway stuff as possible, especially plastics. I have been involved in the plastics issue since seeing the film “Bag It” at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride, CO at least 10 years ago.
Over the years, in addition to reducing my use of plastic bags and especially avoiding single use plastic bags which often end up in the oceans harming sea life, I have tried hard to recycle as many unavoidable plastic products as possible…food containers, product containers, etc.
Unfortunately, the plastics industry has tried to portray itself as environmentally conscious by assigning numbers to many plastic products that are not really recyclable, or will never end up getting recycled, fooling people into thinking they are not harming the environment by consuming the products inside and then discarding the containers.
I recently heard a good piece on NPR about recycling that revealed the sad truth that even the process of recycling itself releases dangerous toxins into the environment. So what is an environmentally conscious person to do, the interviewer asked the scientist on the program. Essentially, products that have a number 1 or number 2 on them can be recycled relatively safely and frequently are actually recycled. However, products with higher numbers are not really safe to recycle, and the process of recycling them itself creates more toxins than it is worth.
So our only alternative is to put pressure on companies to use less plastic!!! And to use less plastic ourselves whenever possible. I recently bought some storage bags and some wrappers for food made out of beeswax…they’re a bit awkward to use, but in some situations they can work.
The plastics conundrum is extremely difficult and challenging. Other than writing to companies about how the wrap their products or how they waste plastic in packaging their products, and looking for products in other kinds of containers, it’s tough to find a workable solution!
I’m open to new ideas, but I do recommend NOT putting anything in your recycling container that has a number higher than a 1 or a 2 on it!
Have you checked out Habits of Waste? Great org working on reducing the use of single use plastics. https://habitsofwaste.org/
Unfortunately, now it seems that produce in larger grocery stores are being packaged in a plastic container of some sort, and of course, at a higher price. It is the oil industry trying to find another way to make a profit. I try to avoid this when possible but it is frustrating to see this unnecessary use of plastic!
All grocery stores (not just large ones) carry an increasing number of food items in plastic of one sort or the other. Trying to find alternatives is almost impossible, making environmental-sensitive choices unrealistic. Farmers markets are good for fruits and vegetables, but we are still faced with plastics of one sort or the other for items that used to come in glass, metal, paper, or were unpackaged.
Also recommend beyondplastics.org where I noticed plastics will be the equivalent of polluting "coal" by 2030. There was a good letter to the editor yesterday in the New York Times with reference to plastic waste in oceans....If the bathtub is overflowing, do we get a mop or shut off the water?
Try to shop ot farmer's markets and bring your own containers and buy in bulk at stores that offer that.
That's simple enough about #1 and #2, but why doesn't our local city's recycling information tell us that?
Because municipal governments have been captured by industry, especially the fossil fuel industry.
They might, but it's usually very fine print.
Nancy, you are completely correct that anything beyond #1 or #2 is really not recycleable! I highly recommend the movie The Story of Plastic, which is free if you can organize a group watch. Judith Enck from Beyond Plastic.org moderated a discussion that we held. I also recommend people write to their grocery store and consumer goods manufacturers about their concerns around the shift towards plastic. I avoid any beverages in plastic, ditto liquid soap. There are alternatives for many products that are not in plastic. And lets all complain about the plastic in the produce section! We quickly learned that covid was in the air, yet everything went into shrinkwrap and everyone still uses disposable wipes to "sanitize" everything. We can also easily avoid most paper towel/napkin usage. Did you know that Americans use 51,000 trees daily just for paper towels?! How nuts is that?!
Unfortunately even those labeled 1 or 2 have various additives to change their flexibility, add color, etc., which makes degrades the quality of any recycled products.
Also, it thoroughly annoys me that fruits and vegetables such as apples and carrots are sold packed in plastic bags. It's so unnecessary as it is easy to bring your own bags.
That's exactly right. When Tide makes their detergent bottle Tide orange, what other product can use melted plastic in that color? It's the same issue with all colors of plastic. It's also increasingly difficult to find powdered detergent, which is more economical. Laundry sheets are another option.
Just saw your comment after posting mine. I couldn't agree more. "What SHE said." New Yorkers should check out BeyondPlastics.com. Also, a company called Bites for toothpaste tablets that come in a glass jar instead of plastic tube and Blue Land for laundry and household products that come in aluminum containers. Refills for both companies arrive in the mail in compostable paper packaging. (Which is worse: shipping or plastic???)
The problem is since China is no longer taking our recycling, it's anyone's guess if things are actually being recycled. Yes, we put things at the curb, but don't REALLY have any idea where it ends up. From what I'm seeing poor countries have rivers overflowing with "recycling."
The major way to deal with climate change is to Vote ALL climate deniers OUT of office and not let any new ones in. That translates into don't vote for any Republicans and make sure every race is contested so a climate deniers doesn't win the election by default. When people say we can't afford climate change measures one should point out that the cost of not dealing with climate change now is orders of magnitude more expensive.
I'm in Texas too and just posted the very same suggestion!!!
I can’t help but think of how different life would be now if Al Gore had been president.
As I watched the Big Apple glow orange and listened to (favorite) MSNBC commentators complain about lack of breath, weepy eyes and closed airports, I thought of the old adage: “As goes California so goes the Nation.”
Not to mention the Pacific Northwest. We've been having these days for umpty years, from CA, Oregon, Canada, and home grown in WA. Glad to see this is getting national attention now.
I think it is partially "Oh how awful for them, glad it isn't me!"...but a lot of the "power people" in NY and DC are now affected, so it has gotten more attention. It is now affecting us in the East Coast, so now it matters more?! I hope this time it gives people more food for thought about how connected we all are in reality.
As I viewed the reports about the smoke in the East I thought to myself, in Idaho we call that August. 😣
We do that in Montana, too. In Oakland, we call it September.
Yeah, I heard them complain and never call it climate change. Have the oil companies insisted that the networks never explain what’s happening?
If you want to help, put solar panels on your roof and buy an electric car. Both may not make the most financial sense for you personally but shifting away from fossil fuels has a cost which it is our responsibility to bear since our profligate use of cheap energy has gotten us into this situation. Some will point out that most electricity comes from coal and methane fired power plants but greater demand is encouraging development of green generation and, yes, it’s more expensive but, again, we made this mess. We need to pay to fix it.
Another thing that will help kick the fossil fuel habit is home electrification. If you're a homeowner and can afford a remodel, the #1 thing you can do is electrify your appliances. This directly cuts out your use of fossil fuels at home (plus it's healthier for you and your family).
The Inflation Reduction Act provides up to $14k per year for home electrification projects. See how much you can save with Rewiring America's calculator: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
Some of the materials for EVs come from mines that pollute the planet. "they' want to put a mine in a pristine area of the Montana/Idaho border....potential for arsenic poisoning among other things.
Fair disclosure: My next vehicle will probably be a hybrid or an EV. However, my Honda SUV has over 100,000 miles. It will probably go at least another 100K or so. No need to mine Mother Earth for me a while.
It's important to distinguish between EVs and the batteries that power them. EVs today use lithium ion batteries which as you point out aren't ideal.
Luckily there are new technologies on the horizon that can help alleviate the battery mining issue: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/04/1066141/whats-next-for-batteries/
David, thanks for sharing that wonderful article. I've been reading Cobalt Red, which is a horrific account of cobalt extraction in the DRC (Congo). Washington Post also had a very concerning article about nickel extraction in Indonesia. That article suggests that perhaps innovation might relieve some of the pressure on these rare earths and the environmental and human toll in the extraction sooner than expected.
Thanks
I've been driving my Toyota hybrid for 17 years and it's almost ready to hit 200K miles on the original hybrid battery. Keeping a vehicle operational longer is also good for the environment, especially if you don't put on a lot of miles. There is a whole lot of waste in the creation of that car. I hope that when I'm ready to buy my EV we will be moving away from rare earth materials for batteries.
And if you can, switch to a heat pump.
Get EVERYONE involved! Start with parents guiding children to get involved. Teach them simple things like the conservation lesson that turning off the faucet for the 2 minutes it takes, morning and night, to brush their teeth saves roughly 1,460 gallons per year of good clean drinking water. Enough to fill 26 55-gallon drums that won't need to consume electricity to be pumped and disposed of.
Then the parents and the children are involved starting with a very simple conservation activity, something little ol' me can do to help reverse climate change. They, both parent and child, start to notice similar opportunities, the leaking toilet, the lawn sprinkler that could have been used to water food production. On and on. Friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors, politicians – both young and old – start realizing they all have a role in the environmental challenge. When my enlightened grandchildren ask: "Grampa, what are you doing about climate change?", I have a very long and expanding list which includes my active role in my county government's Climate Action Committee!
Oh, by the way, what are YOU doing about climate change?
I believe that other parts of the world are ahead of much of American regarding steps that can be taken. Where we live, there are neighborhood bins for paper/cardboard, glass, metal plastic, compost. Also, there are many small shops that offer local fruits and vegetables which are within walking distance of the home. We chose not buy a car and to walk everywhere because it is possible - unlike most of CA (although I walked everywhere near my home in Santa Monica) and large metropolises.
I often think about how much better it would be if people could work close to home rather than the hour or longer drive to and from work in many cities, and think that one thing the pandemic did for many was the opportunity to work remotely from home. It would be wonderful if this could continue.
Something everyone could do if they truly wanted to would be to boycott the products sold by the major corporations. Sadly, there are American products sold here (Scott brand, Johnson & Johnson, etc.) We buy products made here in Spain even though the quality might not be as good because we want to support Spain's economy as well as local. Buying bread from the bakery and bringing it home with no wrapper is something else we do rather than buying the super market choices like Orowheat or other companies that have bulldozed their way into markets outside of the U.S.. To get corporations to change, it takes being committed to being uncomfortable with 'the American lifestyle'. One corporation now owns all of the grocery store chains in the U.S.. This means that one corporation can determine what you will pay for your food. Buy local and fresh as much as possible.
Carpool. When we would need to drive down to San Diego, the carpool lanes were mostly only two people in the car.
The only way to truly make a difference is to take measures that squeeze the pocket books of the corporate kings. The final episode of Succession spells this out.
I agree completely. I have lived in several countries and this has been the case. There was often a socially embedded ethical imperative to act for the good of one’s regional environment. Recycling was like a second language when I moved to Germany many years ago; I was utterly baffled by its complexity until it was patiently explained to me. In Asia, wearing masks was a public health prophylactic, voluntarily observed for the good of the society. Etc.
Antigua, an island in the West Indies and my husband's country of origin, banned plastics a few years ago after seeing the negative effects of discarded plastic bags littering their beaches. I remember visiting in the early eighties before plastic became a thing. Customers brought their own means of transporting their groceries home. No big deal then. Once plastic took over the island, it took about 30+ years before seeing the ill effects of plastic.
Also, houses are now being built with solar panels installed as a standard feature. So cool!
And we keep hearing some of our Congress Critters wailing about those awful libs trying to take away your gas stoves!
One of my thoughts is that so many countries have had wars fought on their soil. The communities are close together making it important to respect one another. The idea of 'individual rights' as an American belief - especially in Texas - doesn't play in other cultures. If everyone still wore masks when they were sick, fewer would get the flu. Even here in Spain, masks are no longer required on buses. It is tourist season, and there are many coughing and sneezing in the streets.
Gallery, I think you are correct. We have a love of the American lifestyle that impedes many changes that could be made. One in particular is the automobile which has gotten bigger (trucks are crazy big). The sacrifices that people made during war (WW II or during the depression) times are the kind of measures we need to take because fighting the climate crises are equivalent but not fully appreciated. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you John.
Get EVERYONE involved! Start with parents guiding children to get involved. Teach them simple things like the conservation lesson that turning off the faucet for the 2 minutes it takes, morning and night, to brush their teeth saves roughly 1,460 gallons per year of good clean drinking water. Enough to fill 26 55-gallon drums that won't need to consume electricity to be pumped and disposed of.
Then the parents and the children are involved starting with a very simple conservation activity, something little ol' me can do to help reverse climate change. They, both parent and child, start to notice similar opportunities, the leaking toilet, the lawn sprinkler that could have been used to water food production. On and on. Friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors, politicians – both young and old – start realizing they all have a role in the environmental challenge. When my enlightened grandchildren ask: "Grampa, what are you doing about climate change?", I have a very long and expanding list which includes my active role in my county government's Climate Action Committee!
Oh, by the way, what are YOU doing about climate change?
Hopefully you are doing all you can, Jim. How are you successfully encouraging parents to get their children involved? More than what I had posted here - which you seem not to have read, I was instrumental in getting our neighborhood to recycle. I personally would take the accumulated materials to the recycling center. When our daughter was 8, my husband took her to the bank he was on the board of. She told the president of the bank that they needed to stop using Styrofoam cups. They did. Who are you getting involved. What are YOU doing?
Thanks for the reply. I'm 78 with a bit of Long COVID. My wife and I live in designed and had built 20 years ago. With the influence of climate change, much about our nome would be different. Knowing the house will outlast us, we are still in the process of change regarding the house and much more. After I write this brief and incomplete list of "What are YOU doing?", I will try to get and maintain a complete list. YOU too?
1. Stopped eating meat.
2. Don't water, fertilize, or weed-kill the lawn.
3. Stopped mowing ⅔ of the lawn and mow the remainder only twice a month in season.
4. Bought a hybrid Prius and drive it at 54 MPG.
5. Put less than 1,000 miles per year on the 20 MPG 2009 Venza, oil change only 1/yr.
6. Installed 24 solar panels on south facing garage roofs.
7. Upgraded central AC from 12 SEER to 16 SEER last fall.
8. Stopped using 5 of the 8 natural gas boiler heating Zones.
9. Replaced 95% of incandescent bulbs with LED.
10. Insulated 6-inch studded attic storage space & added 1" foam board under sheetrock.
11. Super insulated over 4 rooms.
12. Super insulated under 3 radient heated floors.
13. Stopped letting the water run as I brush my teeth 4 minutes a day. :-)
Lots more done and lots more coming soon. I am going to complete this DONE list and add my GONNA DO SOON list. Where can we reach out and share? And define the benefits? And change building codes? And promote?
jimhudon@gmail.com
proud of you. As we have no car, rent an apartment in a 100 year old former mansion designed for a marquis, we've no need for AC (don't have it anyway) as the walls are thick cement and hold the cool in the summer but not so great in the winter when we layer clothing and keep the heat off. I've a small balcony with pots of glorious flowers Spring, Summer, Fall. Also brush teeth with no water until time to rinse.
Great Thunberg advised us to do "everything." I say, when a job seems daunting, "Just start, anything first."
Robert says, "There are so many things we can or should do, it is overwhelming to pick one and say, “This is my cause or contribution to the fight.”
So, OK, select something you ALREADY really care about - there is no doubt a climate connection. Google it and find an organization working on that.
Join and contribute. You will be welcomed, and the personal connections will grow.
Don't worry, you will soon be interacting with numerous other aspects of climate change, since there is so much overlap.
My group is Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL), which would be a great start for anyone.
The website is citizensclimatelobby.org
I also recommend The Climate Action Handbook, A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions for Everyone, from Sasquatch Books. Lots of stuff you can do right now to personally help.
And VOTE for the most climate-forward candidate you can.
Every choice we make, every action we take is woven with shiny ribbons and threads made from fossil fuels. The corporations who make those threads are fat and smug and determined to clutch their riches in their fists at any cost, even if it means the death of life as we know it on this planet.
They don't want you to consider that every flight we take to Paris, outsized home we build, steak we eat, dress from Target we buy, outsized lawn we mow with a gas mower contributes to the ruin of our home, this planet. Nor is it easy for us to rewire our brains to consider the cost to the planet of all of our daily activities and make different choices. It's gobsmacking! But it's possible and once we start unraveling those fossil fuel threads on a daily basis (in my experience) by eating more plants, installing heat pumps, buying repurposed clothes, reducing the size of the lawn, biking more, buying less stuff, even giving up a second home if one is fortunate enough to have one-it is possible to begin to have a sense of agency over this crisis. This sense of agency is not accompanied by feelings of deprivation, but rather by a deep sense of living in harmony with the needs of our planet and of living a "right life." Whenever did a new pair of shoes really bring happiness?
We are in a fight for our lives and we can't do this alone: find neighbors and family to join in this unravelling of the old way of life and reweaving of a new one. Here in Freeport, Maine, last week, we held a plant-based community supper in an old barn with twinkly lights hung from the ceiling and Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill" playing in the background. Fifty or so neighbors came together to share plant-based recipes and show our love for this place and at the same time support our behavior change choices. We had a wonderful time. Nobody missed a blood-red steak.
Then join Third Act, Bill McKibben's organization for folks over 60 like me. Third Act is hitting the BIG BAD BANKS in their pockets and organizing all over the country. Or join the Sierra Club or form your own local community grass roots organization. Life will be richer and more joyful if you start pulling apart all those fossil fuel weavings and tossing them into the fire.